Ride With the Moon in the Dead of Night
by HeyAssButtImBatman
Summary: Despite wanting nothing to do with the Guardians, the trickster Jack O'Lantern, the spirit of Hallowe'en, finds himself joining in a fight against Pitch Black after he realizes the teeth Pitch stole might have answers about his past. The only problem is that Jack and Pitch work together on Hallowe'en, and the Guardians are reluctant to trust him because of that.
1. Chapter 1

She doesn't have a name, but she is different from the others.

Her Mother hasn't told her this, but it's clear from the gold feathers she has that mimic the Mother's, from the way she can resist the telepathic pull of the Mother's thoughts—she is there when the Man in the Moon chooses the new Guardian, and while the Mother and the few others who are there sigh dreamily at the sight of his teeth, _she_ looks at him and feels nothing but a surge of wariness.

"Seriously?" Nicholas exclaims, his blue eyes wide. " _That_ is who is to be new Guardian?"

The Mother, Toothiana, shakes herself out of her trance and flits from side to side fretfully. "But he isn't fit to be a Guardian of Children!"

The Sandman forms a symbol over his head; it looks alarmingly similar to the shadow that appeared on the floor only a few moments ago.

"You're right, Sandy," Toothiana says, "he _does_ work with Pitch. Why would Manny want _him_ to help us?"

The Rabbit puts his paintbrush away, and that says more about how serious he is than his voice or expression ever could. "Look, the kid can be a nuisance sometimes, but he's not as bad as all that," he says. "Besides, he might be useful against Pitch; he'll know weaknesses, you know?"

Nicholas looks at the Rabbit slyly. "Are you saying you accept his help?" he asks, and the Rabbit takes a step back, hands up defensively.

"Whoa, now let's not get crazy," he says. "We're the Guardians. Since when have we needed help? All I'm saying is to give the kid a chance before you get all judgemental on him."

Toothiana crosses her arms stubbornly. _She_ feels the reverberations of that stubbornness in the back of her mind, but while the others mimic the Mother's posture, _she_ merely watches the situation play out.

"I don't need to give him a chance," Toothiana says. "His holiday is about terror and overindulging in tooth-rotting sugar! What does a spirit like _that_ know about protecting children?"

"Probably nothing," Nicholas says. "And Bunny is right. We beat Pitch before; we will beat him again!"

The Sandman beams, his perpetual glow growing the slightest bit brighter. Even Toothiana seems pleased. Bunnymund, however, looks a little doubtful.

"Wait, so are we just going to ignore all this, then?" he asks. "I mean, I've never seen this happen before, but Manny's usually right about these things."

The Sandman flashes a rapid-fire volley of symbols above his head, and Nicholas nods thoughtfully.

"Good idea, Sandy," he says. "We will accept new Guardian if, and only if, we need help. Otherwise, we leave him out of this. Agreed?"

"Agreed," Toothiana says immediately.

"Agreed," Bunnymund repeats, relieved.

The Sandman flashes a thumbs up.

The moonbeams that had been lighting up the floor suddenly flicker and die out. Everyone turns wide eyes to the moon, but nothing appears to be wrong.

"Manny?" Nicholas calls, confused, but the Man in the Moon doesn't answer. His light seems cold, all of a sudden, but maybe she's the only one who can sense it, because the others dismiss it as one of the Man in the Moon's quirks. She looks at where the image of Jack O'Lantern used to be. The Guardians may be unconcerned, but _she_ feels nothing but dread settling in her stomach.

* * *

It's not even close to Hallowe'en—or even to October, for that matter—but Jack O'Lantern is preparing for his holiday anyway. Or rather, he's helping the humans prepare; they seem to have Hallowe'en down pat at this point, so Jack is mostly supervision as the preparations are underway.

Mostly.

Right now he's somewhere in North America, though not anywhere close to the pond where he came to be. It's night, and he's waiting for the Sandman to breeze through with his long tendrils of golden dreamsand. Jack wouldn't call his acquaintanceship with the Sandman a relationship, per se, but they do occasionally sit in silence together if they happen to be in the same place, and they have an agreement regarding Hallowe'en: Sandy won't bring good dreams on Hallowe'en, instead letting the humans' minds come up with what they will, as long as Jack prevents Pitch from doing real damage around that time.

It's worked for hundreds of years, and while Jack isn't exactly comfortable around the Sandman—he's a Guardian, and Jack tends to avoid the Guardians on principle—he can't deny that watching the dreamsand in action is truly a sight to behold. It's why he's waiting here, overseeing the care of a single pumpkin being grown on a rooftop garden when there are other things he could be taking care of.

Jack trails a finger over the young green pumpkin, drawing jack o'lantern faces with his finger idly. He looks up at the sky again, frowning. Dawn is only a few hours off, and usually Sandy's here by now. The Sandman tends to follow the rotation of the earth, never more than an hour behind sunset on his portable cloud of dreamsand, and he's never been this late before.

There might be something wrong. Jack briefly considers tracking the Sandman down, but the idea is about as attractive as the demons Jack faces on Hallowe'en. If there _is_ a problem, it's not exactly his job to take care of it.

The Wind ruffles Jack's hair gently, as if trying to entice him to leave, and after an hour and a half of fruitless waiting, Jack's inclined to listen. He rises from his crouch and stretches, then steps up to the edge of the roof. Just as he's about to step off and let the Wind carry him home, however, something flashes in the corner of his eye. He brings his staff up automatically and peers into the dark distance, trying to figure out what he saw. It looked vaguely familiar, but as a shapeshifter, he knows better than anyone that appearances can be deceiving.

Another flash, this time a little ways away from where the first one occurred. This time Jack knows what he's looking at, and he relaxes and smiles, feeling his nervous tension fade away.

"What are you doing, Sandman?" he murmurs as he takes to the air. He follows the Sandman at a distance, frowning in confusion. Sandy keeps ducking into houses and then reappearing after only a few moments, but there's no trace of his dreamsand. After a few minutes, Sandy crosses paths with another Guardian; Toothiana's bright plumage sticks out like a sore thumb against the darkness of the night.

"I get why _she's_ here," Jack says to himself, "but what is Sandy doing collecting teeth?"

"Keep up, slowpokes!" a loud voice booms a few rooftops over, and Jack's eyes widen when he spots Nicholas St. North's large form popping out of a chimney. "You are both behind in race!"

"Yeah, what he said," Bunny adds, pausing briefly to hold up a bulging red sack smugly before racing off again. Curious as well as confused, now, Jack decides to follow Bunny. He has to fly fast to keep up with the rabbit, and even then Jack suspects that Bunny isn't going as fast as he can. It's impressive, not that Jack would ever tell anyone that.

He flies up to the window of a building just as Bunny's leaving it, and the two spirits end up literally nose to nose for a few tense moments, eyes wide with shock. Jack jerks backward and gives a jaunty wave.

"Bunny," he says. Bunny tilts his head in confusion.

"Jack O'Lantern? What are you doing here?" He pauses and narrows his eyes. "Something's different about you. What is it, new hair?"

"Nope," Jack says. "Same boring brown as usual. It's probably the vest. I think last time I saw you I was still wearing the brown one and the cloak."

"Right, right. What's with the pinstripes, then? Making a statement?"

Jack rolls his eyes. "Yes, Bunny, I'm totally making a statement to my, like, four believers and the handful of spirits who actually talk to me. Don't be ridiculous. I actually got it from a Hallowe'en movie. You know, Jack Skellington?"

Bunny gives him a blank look, and Jack sighs in exasperation.

"We really need to get you a TV," he mutters, and then he says, louder, "Anyway, what are you guys doing out here? Shouldn't you be preparing for Easter?"

Bunny's ears fall for a second. "I have Easter covered," he says defensively. "We're kind of in the middle of something important right now."

Jack gasps with faux shock and clasps a hand to his chest. "More important than Easter? Why, I never thought I'd see the day."

"Rack off," Bunny says, glowering. "These are… interesting circumstances."

Toothiana flits up to them then, looking a little manic with her feathers fluffed up excitedly.

"Bunny, lateral incisor two blocks east!" she exclaims, and Bunny hops off the roof with a little salute. Jack watches him go, then turns to the fairy. He finds her watching him curiously, and as soon as their eyes meet she darts forward and shoves her hands in his mouth.

"Oh, your teeth are so white!" she says, sighing dreamily. "I'd have thought they'd be yellow from all the candy you eat."

Jack jerks out of her grip and huffs, irritated. "I don't actually eat candy for every meal, you know," he says. "That's just a myth."

Toothiana has the grace to look a little embarrassed. "I'm sorry," she says. "I shouldn't have assumed. But they really are so very clean."

A little bird-thing flies up to them and perches on Toothiana's shoulder, and Jack recognizes it as one of the mini tooth fairies that he sometimes sees at night. The fairy looks at Jack curiously and starts chirping, faster than Jack can translate with his limited grasp of her language.

"Whoa, whoa, calm down!" he says, laughing. "It's nice to meet you, little baby tooth, but I have no idea what you're saying."

The Baby Tooth puffs her cheeks out angrily, then turns to Toothiana and says something. To Jack's surprise, Toothiana's cheer fades. She looks at Jack grimly.

"Right, I'd forgotten about that," she says, but it's clear she's talking to Baby Tooth and not Jack. "Um, Jack? Can I ask what you're doing here?"

Jack shrugs and swings his staff up onto his shoulder. "I was just in the area," he says. "You know, preparing for Hallowe'en. I saw Sandy and thought I'd stop by to say hello."

Toothiana's lips thin a little at the mention of Jack's holiday, but she surprisingly doesn't make any remarks about it. Bunny comes up to them then, a few teeth clutched tight in his hand. He carefully puts them into the bag, ties up the drawstring again, and then he finally seems to notice the tension in the air. He looks between Jack and Toothiana in surprise.

"Did I miss something?" he asks.

"Nothing at all," Toothiana says. The crest of feathers on her head puffs up suddenly and she swivels around. "Molar!" she shouts and dashes off. Baby Tooth stays behind for a moment to squeak sternly at Bunny, who lifts a hand placatingly.

"Yeah, yeah, I remember the deal," he says. "You just go make sure Tooth doesn't run into any more billboards."

As Baby Tooth streaks off after Toothiana, Jack turns to Bunny curiously.

"Deal?" he asks.

"Eh, it's Guardian business," Bunny says, scratching at his ear. He does it with his foot, Jack notices with amusement, even though he could've reached it perfectly fine with his hand.

"Ah, right," Jack says. "Fine, keep your little club secrets."

"Oi! We ain't a club. We're an illustrious organization-"

"Dedicated to protecting the children of the world, I know," Jack says. "You don't seem all that organized, though." Toothiana returns, a tooth held tightly in her hand, and Jack addresses her, too. "I mean, why are you four out here collecting teeth? Don't your mini fairies usually do that?"

Toothiana and Bunny exchange unreadable looks.

"There's a… situation with the fairies," Toothiana hedges. "So Bunny, North, and Sandy offered to help me in my duties."

"These are the 'interesting circumstances', I take it?" Jack says wryly. Bunny shrugs.

"Anyway, Jack, it's official Guardian business," Toothiana continues, before Jack can offer to help. "And we're kind of short on time, here, so…."

Jack holds up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Hey, no, I get it," he says. "I'll get out of your way. Just say hi to Sandy for me, will you? If this is going to go on for a while, I have a feeling we won't be seeing much of each other."

"We will," Bunny says. "You stay out of trouble, got it?"

Jack laughs, his expression all teeth. He hops into the air and grins widely down at Bunny and Toothiana, and he feels more than he sees the two of them shudder.

"Do you even know who I am, Cottontail?" he says. "Trouble's practically my middle name!"

He laughs at their expressions and flies off, only to stop a few a few feet away and return.

"Oh, I forgot to ask," he says. "I've been curious for a while about the teeth. I mean, I get the whole belief thing—"

Bunny looks a little dubious, and Jack graciously chooses to ignore him.

"But what's so special about teeth?"

"It's not the teeth, Jack," Toothiana says. "It's the memories held inside them." Her feathers seem to droop suddenly. "Oh, I had everyone's teeth at the palace. Even yours."

"Mine?" Shock flits over Jack's face for a moment before he schools his expression.

"Yes, yours. They hold all your memories from before you were Jack O'Lantern," Tooth says, looking at him suspiciously. "Jack, are you alright?"

No, he's most definitely _not_ alright. Eyes wide, heart pounding, and mind drowning in confusion, Jack jerks back from her.

"I'm fine," he says, a little tersely. Then he sighs harshly and runs a hand over his face. "Sorry. I'm fine, it's just—holiday prep, you know? Duty calls, I'm sure you know how it is."

"Oh, of course," Tooth says. "Sorry to keep you." She looks satisfied, apparently accepting his bullshit excuse as the truth, and with a gasp, she shouts, "Bicuspid!" and flies off. Baby Tooth trails behind her, leaving Jack alone with Bunny.

"Jack," Bunny says slowly, and Jack realizes that Bunny looks even more suspicious than Toothiana did. It makes sense, since Bunny knows Jack better than any of the other Guardians do, but while Jack trusts Bunny—generally speaking—he doesn't want the rabbit to see him having a panic attack, which Jack can feel rising in him like a tidal wave.

"Not now, Bunny," Jack says, and something in his voice or his face must give him away, because Bunny nods and doesn't press.

"Okay," he says placatingly. "That's fine. Just take it easy, yeah? And you know where to find me if you need me."

The reminder of their informal arrangement—which goes all the way back to the Easter of 1968, when Jack helped Bunny with his holiday after some winter sprites went a little crazy with the weather—helps calm him down a little. It reminds him that he's not actually alone anymore, and he hasn't been for a while.

"Thanks," Jack says. "Same for you. You know how to summon me."

Bunny nods and looks like he wants to say something else, but in the end he doesn't, and lets Jack fly away into the night.

* * *

Jack rose from a pond on a night he would later learn was called Samhain. The moon was full, the air was crisp, and the leaves were the color of fire. There was a wooden shepherd's crook on the ground, and when he picked it up, glowing patterns lanced up and down the shaft like orange lightning, following the grain.

He discovered he could fly.

Somewhere off in the woods, the sounds of screams and laughter and singing filtered from between the trees. Jack O'Lantern—for that's what the Moon called him, and Jack found that he trusted the Moon—he felt exhilarated, and he flew off to investigate.

* * *

The pond near Burgess is small but beautiful, especially in the autumn when the leaves have all changed colors and the air is cool and crisp. It's a little warmer out than he'd like right now, and the trees are still green and some even have flowers, but it's still pretty. It's still comforting.

Jack lands lightly on the water in the middle of the pond. As long as he doesn't break the surface tension, he'll stay standing on the water instead of falling in. For some reason, the thought of being submerged in the pond is terrifying, but he turns the terror into excitement every time he stands on the brink like this. Fear and excitement are what his holiday is based on, after all.

From his vantage point, Jack has a perfect view of the moon. It isn't full tonight, and its glow isn't all that bright, but it still dominates the sky. Jack stares up at it, confusion and questions swirling around in his mind. He licks his lips nervously and runs a hand through his hair.

"I know you've never answered me before," he starts haltingly, "but I could really, really use your help this time. I guess I—I _was_ someone before all this. Before Jack O'Lantern. I just need your help to figure out who."

The Moon doesn't reply, and Jack groans in exasperation and frustration.

"Look, you put me here!" he says, his voice rising as he gets worked up. "And I can't help but feel like there's another reason _why_ , besides Samhain and Hallowe'en and keeping the veil under control. The least you could do is tell me who I am. I have a right to know!"

His "talks" with the Man in the Moon are mostly cathartic; he vents his frustrations to the unresponsive sky every time he needs to, and the Moon never helps Jack resolve any of his problems, so the cycle is a seemingly never-ending one that's been going on for centuries.

He's never able to say if the Moon responds, this time, or if it's simply coincidence, but when Jack hops off of the pond and lands on the shore a few yards away, the pattern of moonlight through the leaves of the trees look alarmingly like teeth. Jack's eyes widen.

"The teeth," he breathes. "Toothiana has my teeth! She can help me find my memories! God, why didn't I think of that before?" He feels energized, rejuvenated in a way he rarely feels outside of Hallowe'en night. The Wind responds eagerly to his mood and lifts him bodily onto one of the sturdier branches of one of the tallest trees. Jack hooks one arm around the tree trunk and leans forward, his arm and one foot the only thing anchoring him to the tree.

Brandishing a fist at the sky, he shouts gleefully, "Thanks a lot, you glowing bastard!"

If the shadows really were the Moon's work, then Jack's gratitude is genuine. If it wasn't, well. The Man in the Moon can take it as sarcastically as he pleases. Jack really couldn't care less; he has a job to do.

He hops off the branch and lets the Wind carry him to the Guardians.

Except he doesn't need to travel far.

As he's flying over Burgess, he notices a familiar golden glow coming out of a familiar household. He alights on Jamie Bennet's windowsill and peers inside.

"Oh, no," he says. Laughter bubbles up in his chest and threatens to overflow, so he covers his mouth with his hand as he enters slowly. From the bed, Abby's snarling increases in volume, and even though Bunny's standing his ground, the fur along his back and shoulders puffs up.

"What are you guys doing in here?" Jack asks, moving to stand next to Jamie's bed. Jamie, even though he can't really see Jack, eyes the corner warily, no doubt noticing the flicker of something out of the corner of his eye that all people who believe in Hallowe'en see when Jack is near. Jack resists the urge to make a face at the kid.

Toothiana holds up a tooth. "Jamie lost a tooth today."

Nicholas St. North, who Jack has actually never encountered, watches Jack warily. "This is official Guardian business," he says, unconsciously repeating what Toothiana said earlier, "so if you would kindly take your leave."

"I'm actually here to talk to her," Jack says, gesturing towards Tooth. "And then I couldn't help but wonder what the four of you were doing standing around a kid's bed like creeps."

"Oh, _we_ are creeps?" North exclaims loudly, and Abby gives a deep, angry bark and attacks.

"Oh, crikey!" Bunny yelps as he dodges the dog's lunge. Jack finally gives in to the urge and bursts into laughter, doubling over from the force of it.

"Somebody do something!" Tooth shouts. Bunny bounces off the wall and practically throws himself onto North's shoulders, who bellows incoherently as the rabbit digs his claws into the thick red fur of his coat. The dog practically goes mental trying to scramble up North's leg, and North's shouts quickly turned pained as the dog claws at him.

Sandy forms a large ball of dreamsand in his hands and takes careful aim, but his toss goes wide when the dog suddenly changes targets and charges into him. Jack cackles harder at the chaos as the ball rockets around the room, taking out the Guardians one by one. Even the dog is hit, golden rabbits made of sand chasing themselves around her head as she slumps to the floor.

In a few moments, Jack and Sandy are the only two left awake. Jack's laughter tapers off to the occasional giggle, and he wipes tears of mirth from his eyes.

"I haven't laughed that hard in forever," he says. Sandy smiles bemusedly, and looks around the room with the air of someone who has absolutely no idea what to do. He flashes a few symbols at Jack, slowly and carefully.

"Why am I here?" Jack guesses, and Sandy nods. "Like I said, I'm here to ask Tooth for a favor. I need to see my teeth." Sandy's expression falls and his glow dims. Jack tilts his head to the side. "What's wrong?"

Sandy's expression says quite clearly that he doesn't expect Jack to understand, but he flashes symbols at him anyway. Jack can only make out a tooth and what looks like someone's silhouette before he shakes his head.

"That's not really helpful, Sandy," he says. Sandy huffs silently, then looks appraisingly at where Tooth his slumped onto the floor. He floats towards her, his hand outstretched, but before he can touch her, something huge and black sticks its head into the room through the window. Jack jerks away from it, his eyes wide, and he only has time to make out a long face and glowing yellow eyes before the thing vanishes with an unearthly scream.

Jack flits to the window immediately and sticks his head out, looking at where the thing disappeared to.

"What the hell was that?" he asks Sandy, who looks back at him with wide eyes and a conflicted expression on his face. He looks from Jack to the Guardians and back again, and then his expression hardens into determination. He goes to Toothiana and places a hand against her temple, his expression apologetic, before he takes hold of something only he can see and _yanks_.

Tooth comes awake with a choked off grunt. Sandy opens his hand to reveal a handful of dreamsand, which he banishes to wherever he keeps the rest of it.

"Sandy?" Toothiana says, looking up at him in confusion. She pulls herself off the ground and takes to the air, looking around at the other Guardians. Her eyes pass over Jack with barely a pause, and Jack crosses his arms, pretending that didn't sting. "What's going on?"

Tooth has much more luck interpreting Sandy's symbols. Her expression turns angry the longer he "speaks" to her.

"Got it," she says. "Go, I'll follow as soon as I can."

Sandy nods and flies off, heading in the same direction that creature did. Jack turns to Tooth in confusion, only to find her rifling through North's coat, muttering to herself.

"Know he has it here," she says, and then makes a triumphant noise and brandishes a wickedly curved saber. Jack's eyes widen.

"What the hell is going on?" he asks. Tooth flies past him and exits the through the window.

"No time," Tooth says curtly. "I'll be back soon. _Stay here_." Her voice is harder and more authoritative than he's ever heard it, though to be fair, Jack hadn't really ever heard her speak before tonight. He watches her fly off helplessly, the urge to help thrumming through him. But there's not anything he can do; Toothiana told him to stay.

Jack scoffs at himself. "Since when do I take orders from her?" he asks, and the Wind swirls around him in agreement. He hops lightly onto the windowsill and propels himself forward, and then, with the Wind whistling in his ears, he follows Toothiana and the Sandman.

He doesn't really know where he's going, but he doesn't need to; even from here, he can see the flashes of Sandy's golden light coming from Main Street. He adjusts his course and wills himself to go faster, because from where he is, it looks like there's a fight going on. Even though he might not be of much help, he at least wants to go see what's going on.

The Wind deposits him gently on a rooftop, close enough to see and hear but far away enough that he's relatively hidden from the three spirits on the street. He recognizes Sandy and Toothiana, hovering a few feet off the ground with their weapons brandished threateningly, but the third figure takes a moment to place, simply because he's the last person Jack would've expected to see here.

"Pitch Black?" he whispers harshly to himself. "What is he doing here?"

"Alright, alright!" Pitch exclaims, his voice faint but unmistakable. He scrambles backward on the ground as Sandy and Tooth start towards him. "I admit it, it was wrong of me to take the teeth, Toothiana." Jack's eyes widen.

Toothiana points her stolen sword at him threateningly. "Is that all, Pitch?" she demands.

"And I shouldn't have taken your dreams, Sandman," Pitch adds. He pulls himself to his feet and straightens out his long robe. "So I'll tell you what," he says, his voice now a far cry from the frightened, pleading tone from before. Pitch smirks. "You can have them back."

Shadows materialize out of thin air as if they'd been waiting for their cue. No, not shadows, Jack realizes, dark horses made of black sand. _Nightmares_ , he thinks, horrified. Is this what Pitch meant when he said he took Sandy's dreams?

A few of the creatures walk past Jack's hiding place, but Pitch isn't the only spirit with a connection to shadows, and as long as Jack stays still and silent, the Mares don't see him. Their yellow eyes are focused on Toothiana and Sandy, who look around grimly as the Nightmares spill out of the shadows. They're soon surrounded.

Pitch easily pulls himself astride one of the bigger ones. He smirks smugly. "Boo," he says, and the Nightmares attack. Sandy and Toothiana immediately take to the air to escape the horde, but the Mares simply follow them, now a formless column of black sand more than a herd of large horses.

Jack watches the Guardians for a few seconds, but they don't seem to need his help—Sandy's formed an island out of dreamsand and is keeping the worse of the horde at bay with two long golden whips, while Toothiana takes out stragglers with her sword and her razor-like wings. Jack sets his sights on Pitch, still sitting in the center of the road and smiling like he's watching a show.

Jack jumps, and the Wind pushes him farther than he could've gone on his own. He lands in front of Pitch so suddenly that the Nightmare rears up and screams, startled. Pitch quickly calms the beast with a hand on its mane, and then he looks at Jack in surprise.

"Jack O'Lantern?" he says. "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be tending to your pumpkins?"

"Yes," Jack says, "and _you_ should be doing your duty, not messing with the Guardians."

Pitch rolls his eyes. "This isn't your fight, Jack. You have no business here."

"You made it my business when you stole those teeth," Jack says. "What do you even need them for?"

"I could ask you the same thing," Pitch says, looking at Jack curiously. "I didn't know you were affiliated with the Guardians."

"I'm not," Jack says, a little defensively. "But I _am_ affiliated with _you_. How would it make me look if you attack the Guardians?"

Snorting, Pitch says, "Well, it's a little late for that. The deed's already done, Squash Prince."

Jack bristles at the insult; it's a mockery of one of his titles that he does not take kindly to.

"Stop this or I'll be forced to interfere," Jack demands, pointing his staff threateningly at Pitch. The Boogeyman looks down his nose at Jack with amused haughtiness.

"No," he says, and his Nightmare shoots off to join the others in the sky, taking Pitch with it. Jack watches him go, frustrated anger making his fingers spark where they clutch his staff. He blinks when he spots something in the sky that's heading right for him.

"Finally," he says, and flies off to catch up with the sleigh. He finds North clutching loosely at the reins, Bunny draped across his back, both of them half-asleep. Jack's anger returns, and he doesn't hesitate before whacking North with his staff. "Wake up!" he shouts.

North jerks up with a startled yelp, dumping Bunny onto the floor of the sleigh.

"Whaz happenin'?" Bunny says, looking around blearily. Jack whacks him, too.

"Why didn't you tell me you were fighting with _Pitch Black_?" he shouts. He exhales harshly. "Nevermind. We have to get up there and help Sandy and Tooth."

North and Bunny look up and blanch at the sight of all the Nightmares swarming in the sky.

"Right," Bunny says, suddenly a lot more awake. He pulls his boomerangs from his bandolier and spins them expertly like an old American gunslinger. "North, drop me off."

North obligingly guides the reindeer a little lower, and Bunny leaps out of the sleigh. Jack watches just long enough to see him land safely on a rooftop, already surrounded by Nightmares, before he turns his attention to the fight in the sky. Bunny will be fine, and Jack's biggest concern at the moment is Pitch.

"North, faster," Jack says. North flicks the reins and the reindeer bellow with exertion as they speed up. Jack holds onto the side of the sleigh with one hand for balance, keeping his eyes on the fight above. Toothiana appears to be holding her own, but there are too many Nightmares surrounding her for her to get close enough to help Sandy. The Sandman is completely surrounded by a writhing black mass, constantly whipping the long tendrils of sand that reach out for him. His island hasn't stopped rising since it entered the air, as if Sandy's too busy to worry about where he's going as long as he's fighting.

Some distance away, Pitch stands on his own island of black sand. He's staring at the Sandman, who's too busy to notice Pitch behind him.

"We're not gonna make it there in time," Jack realizes, and pushes off so hard that he actually pushes the sleigh down a few feet. He shoots towards Pitch, intent on stopping whatever he's planning on doing. "Sandy!" he shouts, but he's not loud enough; the air is filled with battle cries and the deranged screaming of the Nightmares, and Sandy is too high for Jack's voice to reach him.

Jack adjusts his grip on his staff. He's gaining on Pitch, who seems just as focused on Sandy as Sandy is on the nightmare sand.

"Jack, look out!" Toothiana shouts, and Jack spots a Nightmare streaking towards him. He rolls in the air and just barely avoids the thing's teeth. It turns sharply, oddly graceful for something so large, and comes at him again. This time, Jack plants the butt of his staff on its muzzle and pushes down as he flips over its head, effectively derailing its attack. He lands on its back and crouches, then pushes himself up again, sending the Nightmare careening towards the ground at the same time.

Above him, Pitch draws his arm back as if he's drawing a bow, and a black arrow materializes out of thin air.

"Pitch!" Jack shouts in warning, but Pitch doesn't seem to hear. He releases the arrow just before Jack reaches him, his staff already swinging in a powerful arc that knocks Pitch right off his island. But Jack's too late. He looks at Sandy, who turns slowly, a wide-eyed look of horror and confusion on his face.

"No!" Jack shouts, but there's nothing he can do. Sandy falls to one knee, but struggles back to his feet and stares at Pitch defiantly. His face, while not exactly peaceful, is at least free of fear as the nightmare sand completely overtakes him.

In only a few seconds, it's as if the Sandman never existed at all.

Sorrow and anger rush over Jack like a wave. He spins in the air, looking for the one behind all this, and finds him on yet another cloud of sand, watching gleefully as the mass of nightmare sand in front of him destroys all traces of golden dreamsand.

"You bastard!" Jack screams, and the sparks at his fingers burst into full-on flames. He shoots towards Pitch like a rocket, the Wind screaming bloody murder in his ears, and feels himself changing in a way he hasn't felt in decades.

He knows what the Guardians will see: his hair darkening, his body becoming longer and more skeletal, his mouth widening into an unnatural jack o'lantern smile that's anything but amused. He feels heat on his face and knows that his eyes and mouth are glowing a hellish orange, as if there's a flame inside of his head like the lanterns he's named after.

The Pumpkin King bellows his anger wordlessly as he gains on Pitch. The Boogeyman appears unconcerned, and merely raises his arms. Behind him, an enormous tidal wave of nightmare sand curves into the air. The Pumpkin King doesn't falter, even when the sand rushes towards him with unnatural speed.

The sand slams into him with the force of a planet, but the Pumpkin King pushes back against it. His insides feel as though they're _burning_ with fury, and finally, that fury has a target. Fire bursts forth from his skin, skimming along the sand like lightning through water. The Pumpkin King feels as though he will burn with it. His body spasms, though he keeps a tight hold of his staff, and he releases a raw, guttural scream.

And then as quickly as it started, it's over. The sand _explodes_ outwards with bruising force, sending Pitch and the Pumpkin King shooting through the air in opposite directions. Unlike Pitch, however, the Pumpkin King has someone to catch him.

The feeling of Toothiana's body slamming into his is painful, but the Pumpkin King is too drained to complain about it. As she lays him gently in the back of the sleigh, he feels himself reverting to his usual form. When he starts to pull himself up, there are hands there immediately to help him. It's a novel feeling, but not a bad one.

"Jack, how did you do that?" Toothiana asks.

"The fire thing or the transforming thing?" Jack replies, wincing as Bunny helps him sit up straight.

"Both," Bunny says, exchanging a wide-eyed look with Tooth.

"I transform into the Pumpkin King when I'm angry or scared or need to release power," Jack says. "As for the fire thing…." He bites his lip. "I… I didn't know I could." He looks down at his hands, as if expecting to see flames still dancing over his skin, but his hands are the same as they've ever been.

North throws a snow globe and ushers them through the portal before he turns around. His eyes rove critically over the others, and once he sees that none of them are injured, his shoulders seem to sag.

Tooth suddenly lets out a sob. Jack looks at her in alarm as she buries her face in her hands and cries, her shoulders shaking with the force of it. North whips around immediately, his face drawn and pale.

"Jack, take the reins," he says tersely, moving quickly to the back of the sleigh. Jack hops into North's seat and takes up the reins, and has to tug a little to keep the reindeer from veering too far right. They're coming up fast on the Workshop, and already the yeti are preparing a large landing pad just outside the doors.

Jack concentrates on landing and tries valiantly to block out the sound of weeping coming from behind him.

 **That's quite the first chapter, huh? This was supposed to be a super long one-shot, but couldn't handle all of those words at once, so I'm breaking it up into four parts. It's very similar to the movie, I know, but there might be a reason for that ;) Anyway, let me know what you guys think about this chapter! Comments make me extremely happy :D**


	2. Chapter 2

**Thank you to everyone who's commented, favorited, or followed this story so far! Your support means a lot to me :)**

 **To Jokermask18: Thanks for the comment! To answer your question, no, there isn't another Jack Frost in this universe, but there are various winter sprites and spirits that fill the role Jack Frost has in the movie.**

 **To PeterPanfan13: I'm so glad you like the fic so far!**

 **Now, on to the next chapter!**

* * *

The inside of the Workshop is exactly the explosion of color, movement, and noise that Jack expected from North. He wishes he could've seen this place under better circumstances, but even now he can't help but look around as he follows the Guardians. The yeti and the elves are hard at work—or at least, the yeti are—with no clue as to what's just happened; it's proof that life goes on even in the face of unimaginable tragedy. Jack supposes that's comforting to some people, but it makes him furious, and he has to work hard to rein it in lest he accidentally set something on fire, because that's a thing he can do now.

Tooth has long since stopped sobbing, but her eyes are still red and puffy. North is crying silently even as he sets his jaw stubbornly. The two of them are leaning into each other as much as they can with Tooth's buzzing wings in the way. Bunny is bringing up the rear of their somber procession; Jack has to fight the urge to turn around and look at his expression.

A few elves run by, nearly tripping Jack and the Guardians, and Jack feels his anger return. He doesn't let go of the tight control he has over his powers, but he lets the anger course through him; underneath it, he feels completely numb, and anger is better than nothing at all.

"We cannot dither," North says, his voice the most subdued Jack's ever heard it. "Pitch will not give us time to grieve."

Jack hears Bunny growl. "Bloody fucking bag of rats," he mutters.

"North, how quickly can we have the funeral?" Tooth asks softly.

"Very quickly," North replies. "I will talk to yeti and have them begin preparations."

Jack lets himself slow down until Bunny's passed him, and when he's sure no one will notice his absence, he turns down another hallway and walks aimlessly. His mind whirls with thoughts of Sandy and funerals and death. He isn't used to spirits dying in such a way. Usually they fade over time, because of age or lack of belief or both, and the process is slow enough for Jack to say his silent goodbyes and leave so he doesn't have to witness it.

But Sandy's death was so… _violent._

Jack shudders and looks up, drawing himself from his thoughts. He doesn't know where he is, but there are doors lining the whole hallway. Most of them are locked, while the ones that aren't are supply closets or the like. Eventually Jack finds an open room that he thinks might be a workroom, though its decorations are spartan and there doesn't appear to be a project in sight.

Jack closes the door behind him and walks over to the window. He sits on the sill and pulls his knees up to his chest and wishes he still had his hooded cloak. He makes do by pressing himself as far into the corner as he can.

For a long time, he watches the world go by outside of the window, an endless landscape of white and grey and wind and sky that would take his breath away under other circumstances. He doesn't know what the Guardians are doing. At one point, he hears the low, mournful sound of bells, but he doesn't go investigate. If they didn't invite him to the funeral, it's because he's not a Guardian and he's not wanted, so they probably wouldn't take too kindly to him crashing it.

Eventually, someone comes to find him. Jack sees a faint shadow underneath the door that means there's someone outside of it, but he turns back to the window before they open the door. Their footsteps are soft and almost silent once they enter, but the slight creaking of the wooden floor gives them away as they walk up to Jack's window.

Jack doesn't know who he was expecting, or what he was expecting them to say, but he finds himself surprised when a few moments pass in silence. He turns his head and looks up, and finds Bunny standing there, his hands clenching into fists and opening again in a repetitive, anxious rhythm. Jack notices this immediately, as only someone who's spent their whole life surviving can, but he relaxes once he's sure Bunny isn't going to hit him.

Bunny inhales like he's going to say something, and Jack looks up at his face automatically. As soon as their eyes meet, Bunny's face crumples and his ears lower. Instantly alarmed, Jack half rises, unsure if he's planning on running away or moving closer.

"Bunny?" he says cautiously. "Is everything okay?"

"She's apples," Bunny says with a weak smile, but his ears are still flat against his head.

Jack pauses and thinks for a moment. "Are _you_ okay?" he asks. Bunny's smile falters and he looks to the side, as if he's ashamed of something.

"I'm ready to knock Pitch back into the Dark Ages," Bunny says, which doesn't actually answer Jack's question, but he continues before Jack can call him out on it. "There's actually something I came to tell you."

"Okay," Jack says slowly, sitting back down. He runs the pad of his thumb up and down over the familiar grain of his staff, an unconscious gesture that helps calm him when he's stressed.

Bunny hesitates before speaking, and after a few false starts, he says, "You weren't at the funeral." It's so far from what Jack was expecting that it takes him a moment to register the tears in Bunny's eyes and the hoarseness of his voice. After a moment Bunny's eyes widen and he makes a face, as if surprised at what he said.

"No," Jack says slowly. "I wasn't. Didn't think I'd be welcome."

Bunny frowns. "'Course you'd be welcome. Sandy would've wanted you to be there." Bunny's breath hitches and his eyes water even more, and even looking up at the ceiling can't quite stop a few from trailing into the fur on his cheeks. His voice cracks when he says, "He, um… he really liked you, you know?"

Jack doesn't know what to say. Bunny looks miserable, and Jack's heart aches with sympathy and the urge to offer reassurance, but he doesn't know how Bunny would react to that, so he merely sits there in stupid silence.

Until Bunny bursts into tears, at which point Jack throws caution out the window and pulls Bunny into a hug. Still standing on the windowsill, he's at least a head and a half taller than Bunny, especially when the rabbit's ears are down. He wraps his arms around Bunny's shoulders, and Bunny wraps his arms around Jack's waist and buries his face in Jack's shoulder.

His whole body shakes with the force of his sobs, and Jack's sure his vest is going to have puncture marks from where Bunny's gripping the material tightly with his claws, but he can't bring himself to care. After only a moment's hesitation, he turns his head the slightest bit and nuzzles Bunny's temple.

Sorrow sits heavy on his chest, weighing down his heart and lungs until he's afraid his ribs will break under the pressure, and listening to Bunny only makes it worse. Jack closes his eyes and let's a few tears of his own trail down his cheeks.

"I'm sorry," he says softly. "This is my fault."

Bunny pulls back as if burned but keeps his arms on Jack's hips, which is just distracting enough for Jack to notice.

"What the bloody hell are you on about?" Bunny asks angrily, his expression fierce even though the fur under his eyes is damp. Jack, for lack of having a hood to pull over his head, ducks his head so his bangs fall into his eyes.

"I just… I wish I could've _done_ something more to help Sandy," he says miserably. "I was _right there_ and I was still too slow to stop that arrow. And if I had just paid attention and kept an eye on Pitch, none of this would be happening!"

"Jack, listen to me," Bunny says sternly, his voice still thick with tears. He sniffs and lifts one hand to wipe at his eyes. " _None_ of this is your fault, got that? You did all you could for Sandy, and you saved us! Pitch isn't your responsibility. He's a giant _fucking_ wanker who's tipping the balance because he thrives on chaos."

Jack sneers. "You got that right," he says. "But still. If I was more powerful…."

"Excuse me? Did you hit your head when slipping in that bullshit?" Jack stares. Apparently Bunny gets a lot more explicit when emotional. "You're plenty powerful on your own, or were you not watching the same light show the rest of us saw?"

Jack growls in frustration and steps off the windowsill. "If I was a Guardian, I would've been able to do something."

"Probably," Bunny agrees. Jack shoots him a half-hearted glare, and to his surprise, Bunny gives him a sheepish look back. "And that's mostly our fault."

Frowning, Jack asks, "What do you mean?"

"A day or two ago, the Man in the Moon chose you to be a Guardian, Jack," Bunny admits.

Jack's chest constricts like all the air in his lungs is being squeezed out. "He what?" he says faintly. He looks to the window, as if he's hoping to see the moon out in the sky.

"We were cocky and thought we could handle Pitch without you," Bunny continues, his tone self-deprecating. "We'd done it before, after all. Clearly we were wrong."

Jack's heartbeat speeds up and his mind is a mess of confusion. First his teeth, now this…. He doesn't know how many more revelations he can handle.

"But why," Jack stammers, "why wouldn't the Moon tell me that himself?"

Bunny frowns. "Jack?" he says.

"He brings me back from the _dead,_ leaves me alone for three hundred years without answering any of my questions, and doesn't even have the decency to tell me himself that I'm supposed to be a Guardian?"

"He _what_?" Bunny exclaims. "You're dead? You _died_?"

Jack waves a hand impatiently. "I died, but Manny brought me back, and that's so not what we should be focusing on right now."

"If you say so," Bunny says dubiously. He walks over to Jack and, after a split second of hesitation, places a hand on Jack's shoulder. "Look, mate, I'm sorry you didn't have the best life as a spirit. If I had known, I would've let you pop in on the Warren every once in a while." He perks up visibly, and Jack feels his lips twitch upwards the slightest bit when Bunny's ears snap to attention. "In fact…."

"Why are you planning?" Jack asks.

Bunny grins at him, something bright and mischievous glittering in his green eyes, and says, "Something fun."

Jack's heart slams painfully against his chest and starts beating double time, and, horrified with himself, he thinks, _Oh no._

Bunny hurries off, calling for Jack to follow him as he heads into the Workshop. Jack takes a deep breath and tries to compose himself before he follows. This is what he gets for complaining about revelations, he supposes. This on top of Sandy and Pitch and his newly discovered fire powers, though, is a lot to handle. It isn't the straw that'll break the camel's back, so to speak, but if this is what one day in the Guardians' company can do to him, he worries over his mental state should he actually become one of their group.

* * *

North's Globe is bigger than Jack was expecting, and a lot more pretty. He and the Guardians watch grimly as the lights flicker and go out, which is worrying even though there are still enough believers that the Guardians aren't at risk of fading away.

"Alright, buck up, you sad sacks," Bunny says, hopping up onto the console in front of the Globe. "I never thought I'd say this, but I need your help. Easter is tomorrow, and I'm pulling out all the stops. We're gonna get those little lights flickering again if it kills us."

"Is all well and good, so long as we don't actually die," North says. Jack laughs for the first time in a long time, and North joins in, looking reinvigorated. Even Tooth perks up, smiling widely and puffing up her feathers. "To the sleigh!" North exclaims, brandishing one of his swords.

Bunny hops in front of him, stopping him before he can run off. "I don't think so," he says. "This time, we do things my way. Buckle up."

He taps his foot twice on the ground and a tunnel opens up in the hardwood floor, large enough for Jack, the Guardians, and the elves and yeti who were unlucky enough to be standing too close.

North curses loudly in Russian when they plummet into the tunnel, and Jack and Bunny both laugh as they dive in after them. Bunny quickly takes point, racing ahead to lead the way, while Jack flies close behind the others, dodging flailing limbs and letting himself drift in their wake since he's too busy laughing to pay attention to where he's going.

Only a few moments later, the tunnel opens up and the whole group is deposited none too gently on plush grass.

Still a little breathless from laughing, North says, "Buckle up. Is very funny."

Jack thinks he might be missing something, especially when Tooth and Bunny laugh and look at each other meaningfully, but he's too excited to mind much.

Bunny hops up onto a large rock and gestures widely. "Welcome to the Warren," he says proudly.

The group has found themselves on a bluff, Jack thinks it's called. Spreading out before them is an enormous landscape of color and vegetation and movement, much different than North's workshop but just as lively and clearly just as lovingly crafted.

"Are you sure we're underground?" Jack asks, staring up at the sky. He can't see a sun, but still, everything is bright and warm. "How is there sunlight in here?"

"Magic," Bunny says, winking. In the next instant, his expression changes into a frown. He turns to look behind him, eyes narrowed, nose twitching, and ears swiveling to catch every sound. He looks just like a regular rabbit, and he even starts to thump his foot on the ground before catching himself. Jack has to bite his cheek to force down a smile.

"Bunny?" Tooth peers at him curiously.

"Something's up," Bunny says. At that moment, a high pitched scream issues forth from he closest tunnel. A horde of little walking eggs stampedes out, and Bunny takes one look at them before drawing his boomerangs. Jack and the others quickly follow suit, and even the elves assume crude battle stances.

With war cries worthy of the old gods themselves, they race forward towards the tunnel.

A child runs out.

"Sophie?" Jack says, shocked. Bunny skids to a stop and the others follow his lead, then quickly put away their weapons, and Sophie goes back to tormenting the eggs, content to ignore them for the moment.

Bunny ushers the eggs behind him and away from the child. He looks panicked.

"How did she get here?" he asks. North's eyes widen with realization and he pats himself down.

"Ah," he says sheepishly. "Snow globe."

"Get rid of her!" Bunny demands.

"Don't worry, Bunny," Tooth says in a sing-song tone, twirling in the air so the light catches on her feathers. "I'm sure she's a fairy fan!"

Sure enough, Sophie looks up with awe. "Pretty!" she says, reaching for Tooth.

Tooth coos at her. "I have something for you," she says, brandishing a handful of bloody teeth.

As Sophie runs away screaming, Jack is torn between facepalming and laughing until he cries.

* * *

Bunny and Jack sit side by side in companionable silence, Sophie fast asleep in Bunny's arms. It's… nice. Usually their interactions—the few they've had over the centuries, at least—are fast-paced and action-packed; they race each other, pick fights with wendigos and stuck-up winter spirits, and bicker and argue with each other like the worst of enemies, but rarely has an encounter been as peaceful and amicable as this one.

"Not bad, cottontail," Jack says, referencing Sophie and the eggs and over two hundred and fifty years of friendship.

Bunny smiles softly at him. "Not bad yourself," he says. Jack's heart does a painful flip in his chest, and eventually he looks away.

"So," he says lamely. "Now what?"

"Now we just have to get my googies good and hidden," Bunny says. "And then I'm taking the fight to Pitch, with or without help." He looks at Jack defiantly, as if expecting him to protest.

"As long as I can join you," Jack says. "Pitch has my teeth, and he deserves it for going behind my back with all this, anyway."

"Your teeth?" Bunny says, tilting his head in confusion. His eyes widen. "Your memories? You mean you-"

He's interrupted when North claps him roughly on the shoulder, nearly sending him tumbling down the hill they're sitting on. Bunny glares and looks pointedly at Sophie, rolling his eyes at North's sheepish look.

"Look at her," Tooth sighs, smiling fondly.

"She really tuckered herself out," Bunny says, looking down at Sophie like she hung the stars in the skies. It tugs at something inside of Jack, some domestic part of him he never even knew he had. He looks at Sophie and imagines her with dark brown hair and warm eyes, and he has to forcibly drag himself away from that image and back to the present.

"When was the last time you guys actually interacted with a kid?" Jack asks.

"We are too busy protecting the children," North says. "We do not have time for… children."

The Guardians exchange sheepish looks.

"So maybe we are out of practice," Bunny admits.

Tooth huffs out a quiet laugh. "We should get her home," she says, reaching for Sophie.

"I can take her," Jack offers. The Guardians immediately look worried.

"I don't know if that is such a good idea," North says.

"What if Pitch attacks?" Tooth says.

"I can handle Pitch," Jack promises darkly.

"Which is why we need you here," Bunny says.

"You worry too much," Jack says dismissively. "Look, I'm the fastest flier here. It makes the most sense for me to go. I'll be quick as a bunny, I promise." He grins, and Bunny reluctantly places Sophie in his arms.

"Be quick and be careful," he says. "We're heading out soon."

"Got it," Jack says. The Baby Tooth that's been following Toothiana around all this time darts forward and squeaks at him. "You want to come, too?" Baby Tooth nods, and Jack shrugs as much as he can while holding a little girl. "Fine by me."

"Good idea," Tooth says. "Keep an eye on him, okay?"

Baby Tooth salutes, kisses Tooth on the cheek, then darts down one of the tunnels. With a wave to the Guardians, Jack follows.

* * *

He feels a little bad about leaving Sophie asleep on the floor, but her mother will put her back on the bed once she finds her. Probably. Jack and Baby Tooth don't stick around to find out. They start back towards the tunnel that'll lead them back to the Warren; Bunny had promised to leave it open for them, since his tunnels and North's snow globes are the only ways in.

They're flying over a neighborhood when he first hears it. It's a voice, young and feminine and achingly familiar, and Jack stops dead in the air and perks up, looking around for the source of it.

"Jack!" the voice calls faintly.

"That voice, I know that voice," Jack mutters, and takes off so fast that Baby Tooth is left tumbling through the air in his wake. He hops from rooftop to rooftop, following the voice as it calls to him, and eventually he finds himself in the woods. Baby Tooth squeaks urgently at him, urging him to leave, but Jack simply… can't. He _needs_ to know who's calling him.

He finds a wooden bed frame, half-decayed and sitting innocently above a deep, dark hole in the ground. Every instinct he has screams at him that this is a bad idea, and he's _this_ close to turning back and flying away, but then that _voice_ calls to him from inside the hole. Baby Tooth flits anxiously around his head as Jack uses the butt of his staff to break the rotting boards of the bed away from the frame.

Jack drops into the hole. The fall lasts only a few seconds, so short that Jack lands painfully hard on his legs. He looks around warily. He isn't a creature of shadows in the same way that Pitch is, but he's tied to darkness and fear enough that the shadows in the room respond to his mood. They wrap themselves around him like a cloak, hiding him from view so that he can observe without being seen.

The room he's in is actually more of a cavern, wide and tall and made of rough stone. Stalagmites and stalactites jut out of the floor and ceiling, giving the whole cave the appearance of a maw full of sharp teeth ready to snap shut. Despite himself, Jack shivers.

Baby Tooth appears suddenly, squeaking nervously.

"Over here!" Jack hisses, and the shadow-spell is broken long enough for her to see him. She darts over to him and settles on his shoulder; he can feel her tiny body trembling against his neck, though she still manages to berate him quietly despite her fear.

"Baby Tooth, not now," Jack says. "Look. We're in Pitch's lair."

Baby Tooth finally goes silent, as the weight of the situation dawns upon her. She lets out a low, wary sound.

"My thoughts exactly," Jack mutters.

"Jack!" the voice calls. Jack perks up instantly, because this time the voice sounds afraid. A fierce surge of protectiveness rushes through him, and Jack knows that whoever this person is, he has to help them.

He can't fly in here; the Wind can't reach him. Instead, he hops in great, arcing leaps that carry him much farther than any human would be able to manage. He comes across another cavern, this one full of rusty metal cages hanging from the ceiling. Baby Tooth squeaks in alarm and flits towards the nearest cage, and Jack follows her, his eyes wide.

Inside the cage, dozens of fairies press themselves against the bars, squeaking urgently at him in a cacophony of noise that he can't hope to decipher.

"You're Tooth's fairies," he realizes. "Did Pitch steal you, too?"

The fairies wail angrily and slam themselves against the cage. Jack looks around at the dozens of cages.

"Alright, I'm going to get you out of here," he starts to say, but is interrupted once again.

" _Jack!_ " The voice sounds terrified, and Jack immediately abandons his efforts and looks down. Hundreds of sparkling golden boxes lie in enormous piles on the floor. Jack feels a bit of anger on Tooth's behalf for how Pitch is treating her life's work, but that anger is overshadowed by the all-consuming need to find his teeth.

He crashes gracelessly onto the first pile but can't find it in him to care about the pain in his feet and knees. Tooth boxes go flying every which way as he tosses them carelessly about, searching for a familiar face. The boxes aren't labeled with names, but he doesn't think his will be too hard to find; if he finds his, he'll know it by the voice that he's sure is coming from his memories.

Jack is still partially cloaked in shadow, so he feels the exact moment Pitch steps out into the cavern. All the shadows in the room shudder for an instant and return to their natural positions, as if Pitch's mere presence is enough to keep them in order, and all of a sudden Jack is clearly visible.

"Hello, Jack," Pitch says. "Looking for something?"

Jack turns slowly, his hands clenched tightly around his staff and his eyes immediately drawn to the golden tooth box held loosely in Pitch's hand.

"Pitch," Jack growls. He launches himself at the Nightmare King, swinging his staff like a baseball bat, but Pitch melts into the shadows with a quiet laugh like he was never there at all. His silhouette flits from corner to corner mockingly, and Jack chases after it, anger making his movements sloppy.

 _This place is a maze_ , he thinks. It's like an M.C. Escher painting, all staircases and illusions. He briefly worries about how he's going to get out of this place, but then decides that's a matter for another time.

He finally spots Pitch—the _real_ Pitch, and not his godforsaken shadow—on a bridge that doesn't seem to connect anything.

"Don't be afraid, Jack," Pitch says, and Jack scoffs.

"I'm not afraid of you," he says. "I've never been."

"Maybe so," Pitch allows. "But you _are_ afraid of something."

"Everyone is," Jack says, slowly advancing on Pitch with his staff held at the ready. "Or did you forget that you aren't the only one connected to fear?"

Pitch lets out a humorless laugh. "You may be connected to fear, Jack O'Lantern, but I _am_ fear. You think you can control me?"

The shadow at Jack's side suddenly swells until it covers him, and Jack doesn't notice until it's too late that he's stepped into one of Pitch's shadow portals. He falls with a yelp and lands on hard, unforgiving stone. His staff falls from his fingers and Jack scrabbles towards it, wheezing.

"Fear is uncontrollable," Pitch exclaims, his voice echoing from everywhere at once. "Fear is immortal and intimate in ways only I can understand."

Jack pulls himself painfully to his feet and takes off running, his breath coming in harsh pants. There's a weight on his limbs that tells him he won't be able to fly or hop down here, so he doesn't even waste time trying. Pitch's shadow returns and corners him against a cobblestone wall.

"Something made you this way, Jack," Pitch says, and Jack fights down the childish urge to squeeze his eyes shut. "You want to know what you're afraid of?" A laugh permeates the air like cigarette smoke, and Jack shivers. "Your greatest fear? It's that you're like this for a reason. It's that no one will ever accept you because of who you are. Not your believers, not the Man in the Moon, and especially not the Guardians."

Jack bares his teeth. "Shut up!" he shouts roughly. His vision is starting to go red around the corners, from fear or anger he can't tell, and he knows that he's close to shifting into the Pumpkin King. He holds it back, but just barely.

"You're scared there's a reason the Man in the Moon put you here with no memories and not a single friend in the world," Pitch continues. He appears suddenly, in that jarring way he has, and looms over Jack, half in and half out of shadow. He looks like a shark, with his sharp teeth and grey skin and his unsettling yellow eyes, but Jack holds his ground, even when Pitch holds the tooth box out like an offering.

"Would you like them, Jack?" he asks softly. "Your memories? The answers to every question you've had over the course of your miserable life?"

"Miserable?" Jack says, offended. Pitch chuckles and disappears.

"Why are you like this, Jack?" he asks, and try as he might, Jack can't pinpoint where his voice is coming from. He spins in place, looking from corner to corner almost desperately, his chest heaving and his heart pounding against his ribs. "Virtually unseen, totally unloved?"

Jack becomes aware of just how vulnerable he is right now. He's in Pitch's domain, and Pitch is right: Jack may work with shadows and fear, but Pitch _is_ shadows and fear. He's sustained by them, has practically been raised by them, and he has the upper hand here. It's pointless for Jack to try to hide his fear; he's certain Pitch can sense it.

"Stop it, _stop it!_ " Jack shouts, both at Pitch and at the niggling doubts that hover always in the back of his mind. Right now, they're starting to sound exactly the same.

"The Guardians will never accept you, Jack, not really," Pitch coos. "After all, you're not one of them."

Pitch appears; Jack aims his staff at him immediately, relieved to finally have a solid target.

"You don't know what I am," he growls.

"Of course I do," Pitch says, scoffing. "You're Jack O'Lantern, the Pumpkin King, the Spirit of Halloween. You bring fear and destruction and _nightmares_ wherever you go." He tosses the tooth box to Jack carelessly, and Jack fumbles as he catches it. "In fact, you're doing it right now."

Realization makes dread pool in the pit of Jack's stomach. "What did you do?" he asks.

"I think the question is what did _you_ do?" Pitch replies, melting into the shadows behind him with a quiet laugh. Jack growls and gives chase once again, but the darkness disorients him. His staff glows a bright, angry orange as he whirls around, searching for Pitch. When his eyes finally adjust to the light, he finds himself facing a large stone seal.

He slams his hands against it angrily, then gasps with realization. "Baby Tooth!" he exclaims, but there's no way for him to get back into Pitch's domain. He's well and truly locked out. Panic threatens to sink in, but Jack pushes it down and turns around, intending to explore wherever he's found himself.

Something sharp and brittle is crushed under his foot when he takes a step, and Jack hisses in pain and quickly dances back. His face goes slack with shock at the trail of shattered, colored eggshells he finds spreading out before him. He recognizes this place now; it's one of Bunny's tunnels.

"Easter," Jack breathes, horrified. "Oh, no."

He takes off running down the tunnel, avoiding the eggshells as best as he can. They hurt when he steps on them, and besides that, he can't help but feel as though walking on them would be disrespectful. He's already responsible for their destruction; to step on them would be to add insult to injury.

As he passes a hole in the ceiling of the tunnel that opens up onto the surface, the Wind finds him with a shriek and lifts him bodily into the air. Jack tightens his hold on his staff and shoots down the tunnel as fast as he can go, hoping beyond hope for—something. A miracle, maybe.

The tunnel curves sharply upwards, and Jack follows it and finds himself in a wood somewhere. He lands softly on the grass and heads towards the sound of voices, trepidation nearly making him sweat. Walking around a large tree at just the right moment, he sees the heartbreaking sight of a child walking through the Easter Bunny.

"Oh, God," Jack whispers to himself. He watches with wide eyes as Bunny's ears drop. He sits all the way back and curls his body around the egg in his hands, and looks so defeated that Jack finds himself starting forward before he realizes what he's doing. North interrupts him before he can get more than a few steps closer.

"Jack!" he shouts, and Jack flinches and turns around to find North standing there with his swords drawn, dressed in his black-trimmed coat instead of his white-trimmed one. "Where were you?"

"I was-" Jack starts, but he doesn't know how to finish. He shakes his head. "What happened?"

"The Nightmares attacked the tunnels," North says, abnormally subdued. "They smashed every egg, crushed every basket. Nothing made it to the surface." He plants his swords in the ground and leans on them, looking just as defeated as Bunny.

Tooth flits over to them and immediately notices the tooth box held almost forgotten in Jack's hand.

"Where did you get that?" she asks, and then perks up with realization and looks around. "Where's Baby Tooth?"

Jack stammers and looks up at her, unsure of what to say to prove his own innocence.

"Oh, Jack," she gasps, her hands flying up to cover her mouth. "What have you done?"

"That is why you weren't here?" North demands angrily. "You were with _Pitch_?"

"I'm sorry," Jack says helplessly. "I didn't mean for this to happen."

Bunny walks up to them, clearly having heard their conversation. He looks betrayed, and he won't even look Jack in the eye. Jack feels his heart break all over again.

"He knows Manny chose him to be a Guardian," he says. His voice is absolutely inflectionless. "I told him after Sandy's funeral."

"And now you know why we didn't want you," Tooth says, her feathers puffing up angrily. "You don't care about kids or maintaining balance; you sacrificed _everything_ we do for your own selfish goals!"

North brings his swords up and starts towards Jack menacingly. "Give me one reason-" he says, but Bunny pushes him back.

"Enough!" he growls, his ears all the way back. "That isn't who you are anymore."

North reluctantly backs down, but he doesn't stop glaring.

"Bunny," Jack says helplessly.

"No, you shut up and listen to me," Bunny says heatedly, finally looking Jack in the eye. His brief flare of anger disappears as quickly as it appeared. Bunny looks close to tears. "Easter isn't just a holiday, and you of all people should know that. It's. . . new beginnings, new life. It's about _hope_ , and now it's gone. This was our last chance to stop Pitch; we're the only ones standing between him and a world ruled by fear, and now no one even believes in us."

"Bunny, I'm sorry," Jack says pleadingly. "I was—Pitch, he—I couldn't—" Jack takes a shuddery breath. "I didn't mean for this to happen," he says. "And I didn't mean to lose Baby Tooth."

"It doesn't matter what you _meant_ , Jack!" Bunny exclaims, and Jack flinches back. Bunny catches himself, and when he next speaks, his voice is quieter. "We trusted you. _I_ trusted you. And now I'm wondering if I ever should have."

Pain shoots through Jack's chest like ice, and he feels his eyes sting with unshed tears. "Fine," he says coldly. "If you're willing to give up two centuries of friendship over one day-"

"Easter isn't just a day! It's part of who I am, Jack, and you're the only one who can stand up ta Pitch one on one, and you weren't here! We had an agreement, didn't we, that we'd always help with each other's holidays? What, you think this doesn't count or something?"

Jack's hands clench into fists. He's so angry he feels like he might burst, so instead of saying something he knows he'll regret, he crouches and pushes himself into the air, flying off so fast that the cheap banner strung between two trees rips right in half.

He can't find it in himself to care.

* * *

Jack flies all the way back to North America in only a few hours. He never makes the conscious effort to do so, but somehow he touches down near his pond in Burgess.

"The place where it all started," he mutters to himself. "How appropriate."

"Indeed," says a silky voice from behind him, and Jack spins around, bringing his staff up in the same movement. He isn't surprised to see Pitch standing there across the pond, the glow of the setting sun casting strange shadows that make the planes of his face seem even sharper.

Jack doesn't even hesitate before attacking. He launches himself across the water like a bullet, the wind screaming in his ears, and swings his staff at Pitch, who dodges easily. Stopping so suddenly that his vision blacks out for a second, Jack turns and aims a kick at the Nightmare King's stomach that forces him to lunge backward; in the same instant, Pitch pulls nightmare sand from nowhere and shoots it at Jack, who's forced to take to the air to avoid it.

Power gathers under Jack's skin as his fury builds, and this time he lets the Pumpkin King take over. He clenches his hands into fists; fire erupts over his skin and crawls up his arms without burning him, and he's surprised in some distant part of his mind. Without even thinking about it, he launches a fireball at Pitch, who brings up a wall of sand to block it.

"Enough!" Pitch snarls. "Don't fight me, Jack. We belong on the same team!"

The sand explodes and fills the air with a brief cloud of black smoke, and the Pumpkin King uses the distraction to attack. He drops from the air like a stone and lands hard where Pitch had been only a second before; cracks spread over the ground from the point of impact.

"We belong in our proper places," the Pumpkin King says, turning slowly as he searches for Pitch. "There is a balance that must be maintained!"

"Well, what if the balance is wrong?" Pitch's voice asks. The voice's owner is nowhere to be found, and the Pumpkin King tightens his grip on his staff. The fire on his hands spreads over the wood but doesn't burn it, and the Pumpkin King twirls the staff experimentally. The flames don't go out. "Aren't you tired of being second to the Guardians? Of having almost no believers and not nearly as much power as you have the potential to wield?"

"Aren't you tired of hearing your own voice?" the Pumpkin King retorts. It appears Pitch is done fighting at the moment, as after a few moments he's nowhere to be found. The Pumpkin King shrinks back into Jack O'Lantern, though interestingly enough the flames remain on his hands and staff. With a little concentration, he manages to snuff them out, though he can feel heat thrumming underneath his skin alongside his anger.

"Jack," Pitch purrs, melting out of the shadows, "you and I are alike in more ways than you think. Who else understands the pain of having next to no one believe in you, of longing for acceptance and a family?" Pitch's voice shows genuine hurt for a moment, but it's gone so quickly that Jack wonders if he imagined it. "Besides," Pitch continues smoothly. "What goes together better than fear and the dark? Look at what we can do together!"

He gestures towards the ground a few feet away from them, and despite himself, Jack looks. Spreading across the ground in a large spiral is a thin layer of half-burnt nightmare sand, interspersed with tiny glowing coals. The overall effect is, admittedly, beautiful, but Jack feels nothing but disgust when he looks at it.

"Don't you ever know when to quit?" he asks irritatedly.

"Careful, Jack," Pitch says. "I may be in a good mood after this year's Easter disaster, but that could change in an instant."

"Wow," Jack says dryly. "Vague threats. How original. You forget, Pitch, that I've worked with you for centuries. I'm not scared of you."

"No, I suppose not," Pitch says, sounding unconcerned. He holds up a fist, and at first Jack is too far away to see what he's holding, but then Pitch squeezes the whatever-it-is, and a familiar voice rings out into the clearing, tinged with pain.

"Baby Tooth!" Jack exclaims. He narrows his eyes at Pitch. "Let her go!"

"Not until you give me the staff," Pitch snarls angrily. "I'd hoped to keep you out of this as long as possible, but you've interfered with my plans quite enough. And you've made it clear which side you fight for."

"I fight for no one but myself," Jack says, but he can't tear his eyes away from Baby Tooth's anguished face.

"Give me the staff," Pitch says, each word short and clipped and angry. "And I'll give you back the fairy."

Baby Tooth shakes her head frantically. Jack squeezes his eyes shut, his mind a brief war between opposing desires. After a moment of hesitation, he tosses the staff to Pitch, who snatches it out of the air with one hand. The glowing patterns die out instantly.

"Now let her go," Jack says, and Pitch smiles with too many sharp teeth.

"No," he says simply. "You wanted to be alone, so be alone!"

With an angry cry, Baby Tooth jabs her sharp beak into Pitch's hand, and he snarls and throws her into the middle of the pond.

"Baby Tooth!" Jack shouts, but before he can do more than blink, Pitch has grasped the staff with both hands. He brings it down over his knee, snapping the wood in half in one smooth motion. Agony bursts to life in Jack's chest, so strong and unexpected that he screams. He falls to his knees, clutching at his chest, and is completely defenseless when Pitch's nightmare sand rushes towards him and smacks him carelessly into the pond.

The impact knocks the wind out of him, and he's sure his chest and stomach are going to be a mess of bruises later, but at least the chilly water is enough to shock him back to awareness. He pushes his way inelegantly to the surface, wheezing desperately for air and looking around warily, but Pitch is nowhere to be found. The two halves of Jack's staff lie abandoned near the edge of the water.

Jack's eyes widen in sudden realization, and he takes as deep a breath as he can before diving back down into the pond. The water is clean and clear, and the moonlight shines bright enough for Jack to see pretty far down. He remembers waking up under the surface of the water on the night the Moon gave him his name; he remembers the terror of not being able to breathe, of realizing that he was dead, of becoming aware of his lack of memories. He pushes the fear down and focuses on finding Baby Tooth.

After a few moments, his lungs start to protest the lack of air. He was already having trouble breathing thanks to Pitch's attack, and so he couldn't take as deep a breath as he wanted. The urge to breathe is persistent. He forces himself to keep diving, though, because Baby Tooth is down here and he'll be damned if he leaves her a second time.

He finds her sinking slowly towards the bottom of the pond, still struggling weakly for the surface. Relief that she's alive and awake makes Jack release some of the tension in his shoulders, but his chest is practically screaming with pain. He gives up on any pretense of elegance and carefully grabs Baby Tooth, then holds her close to his chest and claws his way back to the surface.

When his head breaks the surface, he sucks in a huge breath that sends him into a violent coughing fit. In his hand, Baby Tooth coughs and splutters and vomits up water, shivering like crazy. Jack swims to the bank and pulls himself out, then collapses face first onto the ground with Baby Tooth huddled close to his neck for warmth. She's still shivering, which is a good sign; she'll probably get sick because of this, but at least he doesn't have to worry about her becoming hypothermic.

He forces himself to his hands and knees, and then to his feet. Baby Tooth rides on his shoulder, too exhausted and wet to fly. With sluggish movements, Jack walks to the nearest tree and drops onto his butt in front of it, leaning against the thick trunk. As carefully as he can so that he doesn't disturb Baby Tooth, he pulls off his soaking wet vest and tosses it away, then guides Baby Tooth onto his palm so he can cradle her close to his chest.

"What a mess," Jack sighs. Baby Tooth gives a quavering squeak that Jack takes as agreement. She sneezes violently and Jack shifts her closer to his skin, hoping to at least warm her up. She's not nearly large enough for her body heat to help him, but he doesn't much mind at the moment.

Closing his eyes and leaning back against the tree, Jack thinks back on the past—has it really been three days? With everything that's happened, it feels like it's only been a few hours since he first found the Guardians out collecting teeth in Europe. He hasn't slept in all that time, and while beings like him don't need to sleep as much as mortals do, he still feels exhausted and sore, both physically and mentally.

The Wind curls around him tentatively, but all it does is make Jack shiver and pull his knees up to his chest. At least it's not winter; he's used to nippy weather, and in fact, this spring is shaping up to be a little warmer than he'd prefer, but snow could kill him just as easily as it could a human.

Tears prick at Jack's eyes suddenly, and he looks up to try and fight them back. Baby Tooth notices immediately and chatters at him with concern.

"I'm fine, Baby Tooth," he says. "I just…. Pitch was right." Admitting it out loud makes his eyes well up even more and overflow, and he hurriedly wipes the tears from his cheeks, but more follow. "I make a mess out of everything. I couldn't save Sandy, I couldn't protect Easter, I couldn't even notice was Pitch has been doing all these years."

And it _has_ been years that Pitch has been planning. Corrupting dreamsand can't have been easy, and especially not if Pitch was only doing it dream by dream. Jack though the commercialization of Hallowe'en was due to humans becoming desensitized to fear because of an overabundance of fear in their cultures, but maybe it was the opposite. Now that he thinks about it, Pitch had been suspiciously absent for the past decade or so; Jack and Pitch never strolled down the streets together while they worked or anything, but they at least checked in on each other around Hallowe'en.

Baby Tooth puffs up angrily and says something that sounds like scolding. In the next instant she softens slightly and pats Jack's face, so he can only assume that she's trying to convince him that it isn't his fault. And he _had_ done his best with all of this, considering he's not a Guardian, but surely the lack of results means he's lacking in some way, and not that the circumstances were out of his control.

Right?

Jack blinks back to awareness when Baby Tooth climbs down his torso and disappears into the pocket he'd sewn onto the front of his shirt. He realizes that he's frowning, and he forces himself to relax. He shivers again and looks longingly at the pieces of his staff. The wood isn't the source of his power, so while his control over fire is an extremely new thing, there has to be a way for him to access it on his own.

The staff makes it about a hundred times easier, but it's not as if he's never had to work without his staff before, and each time he's managed it. He just hopes he doesn't set himself on fire. Taking a deep breath, he closes his eyes and focuses.

Unfamiliar but still recognizable as _his_ , fire pulses in time with his heartbeat. With bated breath—metaphorically, of course—Jack prods at the fire. He doesn't dare try wielding it with his staff out of commission, but it seems the prod was enough to do the trick. He can feel his body temperature rising, enough that his wet clothes should dry off soon enough. His lips quirk up in a self-satisfied smile that drops off his face almost as soon as it arrived, because an autumn spirit shouldn't be able to wield fire.

"That's a summer element," he says. True, there is a lot of overlap when it comes to lower level elementals—rain comes to mind, as do the barely sentient spirits of all manner of storms and natural phenomena—but Jack is a major spirit in the Autumn Suite and his powers should be strictly autumn.

Jack jolts when he hears a voice calling his name. A _familiar_ voice. He looks down at his shirt pocket, where he'd shoved his tooth box, and jerks back violently with a yelp when he sees the golden glow emanating from it.

"Jack!" the voice calls again, and Jack pulls his teeth out with a trembling hand. Baby Tooth emerges and perches on his knee, and when he looks from the box to her, she nods at him encouragingly and places one of her tiny hands on the lid of the box. Hesitating for the slightest of seconds, Jack touches the box, and his world dissolves into an explosion of color.

* * *

 **The failed Easter scene in the movie spawned a lot of fics about Jack being righteously angry at the Guardians for accusing him of betraying them. The Guardians are often painted as being negligent or even dismissive of Jack's anger, but when I watched the scene again, I noticed that a.) Jack doesn't do a very good job of defending himself, so it's understandable that the Guardians jump to conclusions, and b.) Bunny looks _devastated_ after that kid walks through him.**

 **Plus, with Jack O'Lantern being a holiday spirit himself, he should have a better idea of just how much Easter means to Bunny. You'd think he'd be more sympathetic, huh?**


	3. Chapter 3

_Jack holds a tooth in his hand. It's the third one he's lost, and this one, unlike the other two, hurt when it came out. His parents crouch on either side of him._

" _You're brave for not crying," his father says._

" _Aye," his mother agrees in her beautiful accent. "And she's a beauty, too. I'm sure the tooth that grows in'll be plenty sharp and white."_

 _Wiping at his stinging eyes, Jack smiles._

* * *

 _Almost the entire village comes to the wedding. Even old Mary Joan Smith, who creaks when she walks, is there, smiling so widely her eyes nearly disappear among her wrinkles. Jack fidgets his way through the ceremony, uncomfortably hot in his best Sunday clothes. His younger siblings aren't any better, but Jack is the only one who doesn't complain. He's holding out hope of getting a taste of that cake, after all._

 _Afterward, when the mingling is beginning to die down and everyone is starting to make their way home, Jack sneaks out to the back of the church to look for fireflies. He hears laughter before he sees anyone, and he creeps quietly up to the side of the barn and peers around the corner. His sister and her newlywed husband are there, standing close together. She's weaving flowers into his hair, and their smiles are wide enough to see even in the darkening evening._

 _Jack watches them and finds himself smiling, too._

* * *

 _He's the only boy to help with the birth of his youngest sister, but he can't do much more than haul water and fetch towels. The old mother from the house a mile west is there acting as midwife, while Jack's father is a steady presence at his mother's side._

 _The labor lasts hours. Eventually, Jack's oldest sister comes to take care of all the children while their parents are busy. They don't worry about anything but the most important of the chores, and they're in bed almost as soon as the dinner dishes are cleaned and put away._

 _When the baby's first cries pierce through the stillness of the night, Jack is the first one at his mother's side. She's crying, but this happened at the birth of the twins (and, Jack has been told, at the birth of all of his siblings) so he isn't worried. He goes to where his father and the midwife are wrapping something in blankets._

 _The baby is wrinkly, and slimy, and the ugliest thing Jack's ever seen, and as soon as he lays eyes on it, he knows that the baby will steal his heart right out of his chest, and he won't do a single thing to stop it._

* * *

" _Jack," his sister whimpers, "I'm scared."_

 _Jack can't think of anything to do except to play the pretending game they'd made up to help chores go by faster. Jack makes faces and does voices and adopts accents he makes up on the spot, and eventually, she laughs despite herself._

 _She manages two trembling steps with her skates before the ice starts to shift underneath her, and Jack reaches out with his shepherd's crook and snags her around the waist, quick as a snake. He drags her away from the cracks by throwing himself towards them, and he's relieved for only a second before the ice gives way beneath him, plunging him into icy darkness._

 _It was only Samhain, too early in the year for the ice to be thick enough for skating, and he should have known that. Still, while it isn't quite cold enough for the pond to freeze completely, it's plenty cold enough to kill someone._

* * *

Jack comes back to himself with a gasp, twenty years of memories suddenly _there_ inside his head where before there was nothing. His mind feels too full for a moment, and in the time it takes him to adjust to all the knowledge he's gained, he squeezes his eyes shut and breathes through the pain.

But then his eyes snap open and pain is pushed to the back of his mind as excitement takes over. No, not just excitement; ecstasy runs through his veins.

"Did you see that?" he demands, but Baby Tooth shakes her head. Jack lets out a loud laugh anyway. "I had a family! I had a _sister_! And I—" He stops and looks up at the Moon. "I saved her. That's why you chose me, isn't it? Because I've always been a Guardian."

The Moon doesn't respond, but this time, Jack can't find it in himself to mind. Baby Tooth squeaks at him inquiringly.

"Now I'm going to help the Guardians stop Pitch," Jack says determinedly. He looks around wildly until he sees the pieces of his staff, and then he dives towards them, sending Baby Tooth sprawling. Being so close to him while he was expelling so much heat must have done her good; instead of landing on the ground, she tumbles through the air but stays airborne, her wings finally dry enough to support her. Jack's clothes are mostly dry, too, but he only notices that in the back of his mind, too focused on the task at hand to worry about such trivial details.

He grasps the two halves of his staff tightly, immeasurably relieved that the break is clean; this would've been a million times more time-consuming if he'd had to search for tiny splinters in the dark. He fits the two halves of the staff together and closes his eyes, slowing his breathing down until each inhale and exhale takes several seconds. He reaches blindly for that familiar thread of magic that connects him to the staff, and once he finds it, he grabs on and doesn't let go, even when enough energy rushes through him to knock him down.

Behind his closed eyelids, orange light flashes bright enough to make him see shapes and colors against the blackness, and only once that glow dies down does he open his eyes. Twinetender is completely healed, with not even a hairline fracture to show where the break had been. Fire immediately erupts over his hands and spreads to cover the staff, and Jack laughs breathlessly.

"Wind!" he shouts, and the Wind swirls around him excitedly. "Take me to Pitch's lair!"

The Wind snatches him up and tosses him into the air. Jack pauses long enough to scoop Baby Tooth out of the sky, and then he focuses his attention on the flight across Burgess. It is, admittedly, a short flight, but it's enough to get his blood pumping and his spirit invigorated. He spots the bed that marks the entrance to Pitch's lair and lands heavily on the protruding branch of a nearby tree, and then he pushes off in a huge, arching jump.

A sudden urge takes him, and as he's coming down from the apex of the arc, he swings his staff and pushes hard with his magic. A fireball sparks to life and flies at the bed frame, destroying it in an explosion of splinters and dirt just before Jack drops into the hole with a mad cackle.

"Pitch!" he shouts, his voice echoing like thunder around the cavern. "Come out and face me, you bastard!" There's no answer except for Baby Tooth zipping up to him, shaking her head. "He isn't here?" Jack guesses. He looks around. "All right, then. Plan B."

He leaps and lands on one of the cages hanging from the ceiling. The mini fairies all start chattering at him at once, and Jack leaps from cage to cage, opening the doors. It takes him a while to notice that none of them are leaving. Jack looks around; though their wings are buzzing half-heartedly, all of the fairies remain on their bird perches.

"None of you can fly?" he demands, and they all shake their heads. Baby Tooth's wings buzz angrily. Jack looks around, searching for inspiration, a solution, _anything_ , and he catches sight of gold light glinting off of the wall. A flash of memory surfaces from his first time in Pitch's lair; he'd seen something as he chased the Nightmare King around, but at the time he'd been too angry and focused for the sight to register in his mind.

"Stay here," he tells Baby Tooth, and then he drops to the floor and darts over towards the glow. Upon a pedestal in the center of a small side cavern, a golden globe rests on a stand. Jack grins and hops up to land on top of the globe. It's smaller than North's had been, but it seems to work the same if the lights are anything to go by. Except….

Except there's only one light left. Jack frowns and inspects the rest of the globe, but no, only one of the lights is shining.

"No Easter eggs, two days without any Tooth Fairy visits, no good dreams…" Jack murmurs to himself. He isn't surprised that belief is dropping. He's surprised that it's happening so _fast_. He looks at the lone light again. It's situated in the United States, in a very familiar area. That's Pennsylvania, and in fact, that might just be Burgess, which means….

"Jamie!"

* * *

Jack perches outside of Jamie's window. It's cracked just enough for Jamie's voice to carry outside easily, and Jack moves slowly as he enters the room so as not to miss any of what the boy is saying.

"I've believed in you for a long time. Like, my whole life, in fact." Jack has to smile at that, even as he creeps towards Jamie's bed. "So you kind of owe me."

The well-loved stuffed rabbit on Jamie's bed doesn't so much as twitch, and as cute as it is, Jack has to wonder how children's minds work sometimes. Why would the Easter Bunny be connected to a simple stuffed animal?

"Please," Jamie says, his tone wheedling, "just give me a small sign. Anything to let me know that you're real."

Even though he knows better, Jack finds himself just as tense as Jamie is, the both of them waiting with bated breath for something to happen. After a few moments, of course, the rabbit is still right where it was before, and Jamie sighs and flops back onto the bed. Jack decides to take matters into his own hands.

His control over shadow is limited, and his control over fire is new, but these are drastic circumstances. The Guardians' very lives depend on this one child, and while Jack may be mad at them, he doesn't want them to die.

He snaps and a tiny flame sparks to life in his hand, just barely bigger than a candle flame. It's bright enough to cast shadows on the wall opposite Jamie's bed and to get the boy's attention even through his closed eyelids. Jack moves the flame behind the desk chair sitting innocently in the middle of the room and then reaches out with his magic and grabs hold of the chair's shadow.

Jamie gasps when the shadow starts to shift, but Jack doesn't look back at him. All of his concentration is going into keeping the flames and shadows under control. With a bit of mental prompting, the shadow shrinks and becomes a fat rabbit that hops and dances around on the wall. The rabbit reaches behind its back and pulls out a boomerang, then throws it. The shadow-boomerang whirls around on the wall for a bit before returning to the rabbit, who leaps up to catch it and is yanked along by the boomerang's momentum.

Jamie laughs. "I knew it!" he says, delighted. "You really _are_ real!"

"Oh, he's real, all right," Jack says, and then laughs at himself. Jamie looks over at him, his smile fading a bit. Jack shifts uncomfortably, even though he knows Jamie can only barely see a shadow and not Jack himself.

"Is someone there?" Jamie asks hesitantly, sounding a little afraid, and Jack frowns. He doesn't mind the kids not believing in him—he has enough believers that his powers are bolstered and his ego is stroked—but the one thing he doesn't want is for people to genuinely be afraid of him.

"Yeah, kid," Jack sighs. "Someone's here."

He takes hold of the rabbit again and morphs it, this time into a tall, skeletal figure with wide, empty eye sockets and a Cheshire Cat grin.

"A skeleton?" Jamie says, tilting his head in confusion. Jack smiles and adds another figure to his wall art, a shorter female figure that plucks a string from its wrist and then catches its hand when the appendage falls off. "Oh! The Nightmare Before Christmas!"

"Exactly," Jack says proudly. The movie may be getting older, but he's glad to see that it's still popular with the kids. He's unprepared for the way Jamie's eyes snap to him.

"So," Jamie says, eyebrows furrowed, "who are you?"

Jack banishes the second shadow figure and leaves only the skeleton. Then, for good measure, he adds a grinning jack o'lantern.

"Jack Skellington?" Jamie says, which is close enough to who Jack actually is, apparently, for that to count as belief. Jamie's mouth drops when he looks over at Jack again. "Jack Skellington! I thought you'd be… taller."

"Can you see me now, kid?" Jack asks excitedly. Jamie nods, and Jack beams at him. "I'm not Jack Skellington, or at least not the way you're thinking of. The Nightmare Before Christmas was a movie based off of me, but that isn't who I am. My name is Jack O'Lantern. I'm the Spirit of Hallowe'en."

"Cool!" Jamie enthuses. Then he frowns. "So, wait. The Easter Bunny…?"

"Real," Jack says. "And so is Santa, and the Tooth Fairy, and the—the Sandman." His smile dims somewhat. "We're all real."

"I knew I wasn't dreaming," Jamie whispers. "What's going on, Jack?"

Jack is distracted from answering by a familiar racket coming from outside. He rushes over and looks out the window, and can't stop the smile from spreading across his face.

"The Boogeyman is loose," Jack tells Jamie. "The others and I are trying to stop him, and you're going to help. Meet me outside, okay?"

He flies off before Jamie can answer, and lands on the street outside just in time to see the sleigh land less-than-gracefully in front of him. Violent cursing in what Jack assumes to be Russian erupts as the harnesses binding the reindeer to the sleigh snap, leaving the animals to canter off down the street.

"Jack!" a familiar voice exclaims. Tooth nearly falls over in her haste to get to him, and as soon as she's close enough she throws herself at him and wraps her arms around his shoulders. He hugs her back tightly. "I'm so glad to see you again!"

North carefully climbs out of the wreckage of the sleigh, looking more like an old man than Jack's ever seen him. "What are you doing here?" he asks wonderingly.

Jack smiles. "Same as you," he says, looking over his shoulder towards where Jamie is running across his yard.

"The last light," North says softly. Jamie comes to a stop next to Jack, panting slightly.

"Wow!" he says, stars in his eyes. "It's really you!"

"Wait a minute," Jack says, looking around. "Where's Bunny?"

Tooth and North exchange meaningful looks.

"Losing Easter took its toll on all of us," North says slowly, and Tooth's wings flutter half-heartedly as if in agreement. "Bunny worst of all."

He looks over his shoulder, and when Jack follows his gaze, he notices a small, grey fluff ball sitting on the wing of the sleigh that he hadn't noticed before.

"Oh, no," he groans softly.

"That's not the Easter Bunny," Jamie says, walking up to the sleigh. "The Easter Bunny's tall and cool, and this guy is… cute." He reaches out a finger to scratch at Bunny's chin, and Jack has to stifle slightly hysterical laughter when Bunny's eyes shut halfway in bliss and he leans into the contact, his foot thumping. After a moment, he comes back to himself and bats Jamie's hand away in irritation.

"That's it," Bunny growls, hopping off the sleigh and onto the ground. "I'm sick of this! I used to be intimidating!" He catches sight of Jack's grin and whirls on him, pointing with his paw. "And don't you smirk at me, you bloody drongo. You probably told him to scratch me like I'm some kind of pet!"

Jack's eyes widen at the genuine hurt in Bunny's tone and he opens his mouth to say something, but Jamie beats him to it.

"No, actually, he told me you were real," he says, looking a little sheepish. "Just when I was starting to think that maybe you weren't."

Bunny looks up at Jamie in shock. "He made you believe? In _me_?" His gaze flicks to Jack, and he looks so touched that Jack has to fight back the urge to coo at him. It's not entirely his fault; Bunny's adorable like this, with his little nose and his big ears and his oversized feet. In fact, he doesn't look entirely like a regular rabbit, but rather like a child version of what he normally looks like, albeit a child still growing into their limbs.

The tender moment is broken when a sudden clap of thunder makes Bunny yelp and flinch. They all look up and see an ominous black cloud floating amongst the regular grey ones currently blanketing the sky. Another peal of thunder, this time accompanied by lightning, outlines the shifting mass of sand in the sky that is decidedly _not_ a cloud. Jack bares his teeth and tightens his grip on his staff.

"Get Jamie out of here," he says.

"Jack, be careful," North replies, and the two nod at each other before Jack streaks off into the sky.

"You have a habit of showing up where you're not wanted, I've noticed," Pitch says as Jack draws closer. He sounds amused but not surprised. "Let's end this, shall we?"

He falls backward and spirals towards Jack with the entirety of his nightmare sand horde at his heels. Jack lets his power gather under his skin and he lets it loose in the form of a rapid-fire barrage of fireballs. Pitch merely laughs and waves a hand, and the fireballs fizzle out before they even touch him, as if they're hitting an invisible barrier.

"That little trick won't work on me anymore," Pitch gloats. He throws his hand towards Jack, palm up, and the nightmare sand streams past him. Jack dodges the first thrust but is too slow to avoid the second wave, which slams into him with all the force of a hurricane. Jack goes flying through the air, too insensible to even try and catch himself. He slams into something hard enough that his vision goes black for a moment.

When he wakes up again, the Guardians and Jamie are crowded around him, peering down at him worriedly. He groans and pulls himself to his feet, leaning heavily on his staff. Pitch's shadow glides by, laughing.

"All this fuss," he says, "over one little boy, and still he refuses to stop believing." Jack instinctively pushes Jamie behind him, his expression darkening as a surge of protectiveness flares to life within him. "No matter. There are other ways to snuff out a light."

As he speaks, shadows pass over the streetlights, blowing them out one by one. It's a smart tactic, both to create fear and to cripple Jack even further, for without light, there won't be any shadows for him to manipulate.

"If you want him, you're gonna have to go through me," Bunny says. Pitch laughs.

"Look how fluffy you are," he coos. "Would you like a scratch behind the ears?"

Bunny's fur fluffs up until he's twice his actual size, and he hurriedly hops back and up into Jack's hands.

"Don't you even think about it!" he snarls.

Pitch appears in the flesh, then, riding astride the largest Nightmare Jack's ever seen. Flanking him on either side are countless others, snorting madly and stamping their hooves with barely concealed restraint. As their shadows grow, spreading towards the light rather than away from it, Jamie presses close against Jack's leg.

"Jack," he whispers. "I'm scared."

Jack flinches a bit as echoes from a life long past swirl through his head. Even though he knows he shouldn't, he looks at Jamie and sees his youngest sister standing awkwardly on that pond, and the same protectiveness he felt over her comes back with a vengeance. He drops to one knee and shifts Bunny to the crook of his arm so he can place a hand on Jamie's shoulder.

"It'll be okay, Jamie, I promise," he says. "We're going to… we're going to have a little fun."

A grin slowly spreads across his face as a crazy, half-formed plan works itself out in his mind. He smiles reassuringly, though judging from Jamie's expression, he comes off a little deranged instead.

"So what do you think, Jamie?" Pitch says softly, as Jack stands up and calls on long-unused power. "Do you believe in—"

"In the Boogeyman?" Jack finishes in an exaggeratedly haughty voice. Jamie looks up at him and bursts into laughter, then slaps a hand over his mouth. Jack grins down at him with sharp teeth and laughs at the Guardians' shocked expressions.

"Jack?" Tooth says.

"I'm a shapeshifter, Tooth," Jack replies in a perfect replica of Pitch's voice. "A nightmare with great hair. Fear me!"

North guffaws and slaps Jack on the back hard enough to send him stumbling forward a step or two. "Is very funny, my friend," he says. Pitch growls, and Jack growls back and flings a ball of fake nightmare sand at him. It's nothing more than some gravel Jack found on the ground (with a healthy dose of his signature laughter magic thrown in) but it distracts Pitch enough to give the Guardians time to escape.

"Let's go get your friends," Jack tells Jamie, grinning as he returns to his own shape. Jamie smiles back and races down the street, leading the way. North can't do more than hobble along and Tooth obviously isn't used to walking, so Jack doubles back and tells them to find a place to hide before he flies after Jamie with Bunny clutched tightly in his arms.

"Oh, strewth!" Bunny yelps as Jack suddenly dives and snatches Jamie up by the back of his shirt. Jamie laughs when Jack tosses him up into the air and then catches him around the waist instead. "Jack! Be careful, you show pony."

"Careful's my middle name, Cottontail," Jack says and follows Jamie's directions to get to his friends' houses.

The shadows reach out to him as he flies by, responding to the joy he gives off by forming into random Hallowe'en themed shapes that shift and dance like flames. This, plus the sight of Jamie hovering in the air seemingly on his own, is enough to get the kids to believe in him. There are gasps and calls of his name—his _real_ name, once Jamie corrects them—as they follow him out onto the street.

"You're a real ace at this gathering believers thing, aren't you?" Bunny says, smiling up at Jack as they fly down the street with a group of kids at their heels.

"Maybe," Jack says. "It helps that these kids are particularly strong believers." And he should know; Burgess is one of his favorite places to be during holidays because of how spirited its kids are.

Jack pulls to a sudden stop when the sky lights up with lightning. A moment later, thunder booms, so loud in the sky that Jack's ears ring when it's finished. He quickly joins the kids on the ground and puts Bunny down so he can better wield his staff.

Up on the roof of a building directly in front of them, Pitch sits on his Nightmare. When he speaks, his voice carries easily over the distance though he doesn't appear to be shouting. "You think a few children can help you against this?" He raises his arms and a tidal wave of nightmare sand rises behind him, writhing against invisible constraints as lightning flashes in the sky above them.

Jack's grip tightens around his staff. "They're just bad dreams," he tells the kids. "They can't hurt you."

"Oh, can't they?" Pitch asks mockingly. His Nightmare neighs and tosses its head, as if mimicking its creator.

"We'll protect you, mate" Bunny promises, and despite his size, his voice is full of confidence. Jack supposes that centuries of being a badass are hard to shake, even when powerless.

Pitch laughs. "But who'll protect you?" he crows, and Jack scowls. He and Bunny exchange angry looks, and jack steps forward.

"I will."

Jack blinks in shock at Jamie as the boy walks in front of Jack and Bunny, staring up at Pitch challengingly. He turns to look over his shoulder at Jack and smiles. After a moment, Jack smiles back.

"I will," Cupcake growls, stalking forward to stand at Jamie's side.

"I will," says Pippa, pushing her shoulders back and crossing her arms to hide how her hands are trembling.

Bunny and Jack exchange awed, touched looks as one by one the kids step forward, forming a wall between the two spirits and Pitch, who scoffs in disgust.

"Still think there's no such thing as the Boogeyman?" Pitch says, and as if that's some sort of signal, the tidal wave of sand suddenly falls forward and rushes towards them with a sound like a stampede.

"Jack, the kids!" Bunny shouts, and Jack hurriedly starts herding the kids behind him. He has no idea what he's going to do since it seems the Nightmares are immune to his fire now, but the sand will have to swarm over his cold, dead body before they touch one of those kids. He looks up and notices that Jamie hasn't moved, and is staring up at Pitch with a calculating look on his face.

"Jamie, come here!" Jack shouts.

Jamie ignores him, and ignores the way Bunny is headbutting his legs, trying to get him to move. "I do believe in you," Jamie shouts. "I'm just not afraid of you!"

The Nightmares don't cease their relentless charge. Jack darts towards Jamie but knows he's going to be too late. Right before the sand hits, he flinches back and closes his eyes, throwing his hands up to protect himself, vaguely aware of Jamie doing the same thing. Instead of the horrific impact he was expecting, he feels a slight breeze as something darts by his face. Confused, he opens his eyes and gapes at the long golden whips of dreamsand that dart cheerfully through the air.

"Jamie, what did you do?" he asks.

"I just touched the sand," Jamie stammers, looking around with wide eyes. "I didn't think _this_ would happen? What _is_ this stuff?"

"It's dreamsand, mate," Bunny says, hopping into Jack's arms again. He reaches up and bats at one of the tendrils of sand, and golden eggs explode into being above his head and begin dancing around. Bunny beams. "The Sandman's dreamsand."

"Cool!" says Claude—or maybe it's Caleb. Jack laughs when the kids immediately perk up, their earlier fear forgotten. He looks up at Pitch and smirks smugly. The smirk only grows when Pitch growls, enraged. Pitch's Nightmare takes to the air and canters towards the kids, only to rear back with a scream when a blur of blue and green darts by, nearly taking its head off.

"Tooth!" Jack exclaims. Tooth zips by overhead, laughing in delight at the feeling of flying again.

"The dreamsand must have given her a boost in power," Bunny says. He peers into the distance. "Hmm. Him, too."

Jack follows Bunny's gaze and sees North sprinting towards them with his swords in hand, surprisingly fast for someone of his size.

"No!" Pitch screams. "Kill them! Do your jobs!"

The nightmare sand reforms into Nightmares that rear up and gallop full speed towards Jack and the kids. Jack takes to the air to avoid them, while the kids scatter. North tosses two snowballs and an entire horde of yeti come through, covered in green and red warpaint and roaring loud war cries in Yettish.

Confident that things are being handled for the moment, Jack hovers in place in the air and holds Bunny out at arm's length.

"Why haven't you changed back yet?" he asks. The words have no sooner left his mouth than Bunny shudders, and so suddenly that the transformation is over with before he can even blink in shock, Jack is holding a full-sized Easter Bunny. Jack falls a few feet before he adjusts to the weight, and then he grins and bounces Bunny a bit. "Huh. You know, you're lighter than I was expecting."

Bunny looks unimpressed. "Cheers, mate." He perks up and looks intently over Jack's shoulder. "We got incoming. Drop me."

Jack lets go of Bunny and flies straight up. The Nightmares that were cantering towards them shoot through empty air, and before they can so much as turn around, Bunny's boomerangs slice through them. Bunny leaps up to catch them on their return trip and when he lands, he taps his foot three times on the ground. A huge tunnel opens up, but instead of dropping into it, he steps back. A second later, the stone sentinels from his Warren—egg golems, Jack thinks they're called—pour through.

Jack watches as Cupcake leads the kids on a charge towards a Nightmare, which shrieks and jerks back when they touch it. It seems to melt into golden dreamsand, and with triumphant cheers, the kids turn to their next target.

With things on the ground—and in the air, thanks to Tooth—taken care of, Jack turns his attention to Pitch. Fire doesn't have the same effect on Pitch as it once did, but it makes Jack feel better to launch fireballs at the Nightmares. They, at least, explode into harmless sand. Pitch growls and urges his Nightmare on, jumping from rooftop to rooftop while Jack mimics him on a string of parallel buildings. They trade blows, fire and nightmare sand being thrown at deadly speeds towards each other but always dodged at the last second.

Jack reaches the last building on his street and leaps across to Pitch's, launching a wave of fire as he lands with a grunt of effort. Pitch takes to the air to avoid it, only to jerk to the side when Tooth streaks by, one of North's swords in hand. She growls and charges towards Pitch, forcing him to dart backward, but she ignores him in favor of taking out the Nightmares grouped around him.

Bunny hops from the ground to a streetlight to the roof, launching his boomerangs at Pitch and forcing him back towards Jack. Together, the two of them herd the Nightmare King towards another roof, where North waits with his one remaining sword. With a war cry worthy of the yeti, North jumps off the roof and lands neatly on the ground, cleaving Pitch's Nightmare in half as he does so.

Pitch goes tumbling through the air but lands lightly on his feet, scowl firmly in place. North rushes towards him, only to jerk back when Pitch suddenly forms an enormous scythe out of nightmare sand and swings it at him in a deadly arc. Bunny and Jack join the fray, while Tooth hovers above and divebombs Pitch whenever she can get away with it.

Eventually, they have him cornered in an alley.

"Give up, Pitch," Jack says, holding his staff in one hand and aiming the crook at Pitch. "It's over. There's nowhere for you to hide."

Pitch grins. "Oh, isn't there?" And with a cackle that echoes around the alley like it was a cave, Pitch melts into the shadows.

 _Well, shit_ , Jack thinks. Out loud, he says, "Forgot he can do that."

He looks around warily at the shadows that grow and stretch on the walls. They don't respond to his attempts to control them with his magic.

Bunny's eyes widen. "Jack, look out!" He launches a boomerang at Pitch but the Nightmare King merely deflects it. Jack spins around and brings his staff up, but he knows as soon as he sees Pitch's scythe that he's going to be too late.

A long, familiar golden whip wraps around the handle of the scythe, stopping its arc instantly. Jack can only watch in shock as Pitch is pulled screaming into the air by the arm.

"Can it be?" North whispers, and it snaps Jack out of his stupor.

"Come on!" he says and darts off, Tooth hot at his heels. They arrive just in time to see Pitch land heavily on the ground, but they ignore him in favor of swarming around a newly resurrected Sandy, cheering and laughing.

"Mate, you are a sight for sore eyes," Bunny says, and exchanges an ecstatic smile with Jack.

Sandy flashes a few symbols at them and they obligingly step back a few paces, giving him room to gather his dreamsand into a cloud large enough for him to ride on. As dinosaurs make their slow way around Burgess and manta rays and tiny golden butterflies dart through the air, Jack presses a hand to his chest, trying to decipher if the warmth there is from fire magic or pure, unadulterated joy.

* * *

 **Just an epilogue to go and then we'll be done! Drop a comment to let me know what you liked, what you hated, or what you think I could've done differently. I read and appreciate every single comment I get :)**


	4. Chapter 4

After the dust has settled and Pitch has been dragged off by his own Nightmares, after the Guardians have returned to the Workshop and cried over Sandy (again), after North sets them all up with comfortable but impersonal guest rooms, Jack goes for a walk.

As exhausted as he is, he's too keyed up to sleep right now and there are too many thoughts running through his mind for him to be able to distract himself with a book or something. Even the many toys and gadgets lying around the Workshop aren't a temptation.

His staff slung across one shoulder, Jack wanders through the main corridors of the Workshop aimlessly, watching the yeti as they work. It's the Workshop's night cycle right now, which means that only a few yeti are awake, and they eye Jack warily as he walks by them. He can't really blame them for being suspicious, but he still shoots them disgruntled looks every time they pointedly edge away from him.

In one of the smaller hallways, Jack passes a large, ornate, and randomly placed bathroom. He ducks inside and hovers in front of the mirror, studying his reflection. There isn't anything obviously different about him; he still has the same dark brown hair, dark brown eyes, and pale skin that he's always had. When he calls on his power, his eyes glow the same amber-orange color that they always have.

There's no indication that he's anything other than the autumn spirit he's been for three hundred years. And yet….

And yet he can control fire, which is an ability only summer spirits have.

Jack jerks back a good two feet when someone suddenly knocks on the door.

"Jack, are you decent?" North calls, his voice muffled by the door. Jack lets himself drift to the floor as he reaches over to open the door. "Oh. Good, you are. Cannot sleep?"

Jack shrugs, a little uncomfortable under North's scrutiny. "There's just… too much to think about, you know?"

To his surprise, North nods in understanding. "You are not the only one with this problem. Come with me, we will go to the other Guardians."

As Jack falls into step with North, he asks, "Are they still up, too?"

"Well, Sandy is probably asleep," North admits. "But that is because he is Sandy. It is when he is awake willingly that something is wrong."

"Makes sense," Jack says. He tries to keep track of the turns they take and the stairs they climb, but the Workshop can be a real maze sometimes, and he gives up well before they get to their destination. _At least there's a window,_ Jack thinks as North leads him into the sitting room, _so worst case, I can leave that way instead of trying to find my way out through the hallways._

The Guardians are lounging around the room around a large fire, and they all smile when they see him. Jack smiles back and hops over the back of a small couch.

He lands on Bunny.

"Oi!" Bunny yelps, and then stares at Jack in astonishment. For a second, they're both too shocked to move, and then Jack flushes slightly and slides off of Bunny's stomach and onto the floor. He leans his head back against the sofa and waits for the embarrassment to pass. After a moment, Bunny relaxes back into the cushions and lightly cuffs Jack on the back of his head.

"You're too keyed up to sleep, too, I take it?" Tooth says. Jack shrugs.

"A lot has happened," he says vaguely.

"You said it, mate," Bunny says. "Dealing with Pitch on top of Easter?" He scoffs. "I'm going to sleep for weeks when I get back to the Warren."

"You are welcome to a room here," North says.

"Thanks for the offer, but I'm going to have to pass," Bunny says. "Me and the yeti don't exactly have what you'd call a cordial relationship."

"What would you call it?" Tooth wonders.

"It's not fit for polite conversation," Bunny says dryly. Jack laughs. The sound startles Sandy awake, and he drops to the floor, looking around with a bleary smile on his face. He looks more awake once he spots Jack and flashes a few symbols at him.

"Nah, I'm not going to let Pitch wallow for too long," Jack says. "I need him for my holiday, and besides, the sooner he gets back to business, the sooner the balance will be restored, right?"

"Exactly," Bunny says, sounding pleased. For some reason, this makes the others look a little sheepish. Suspicious, Jack twists to look up at Bunny, who looks down at him with an innocent expression that Jack doesn't believe for a minute.

"What?" Jack says slowly.

"Jack," North says a little awkwardly. "We must offer you an apology."

"What?" Jack says, surprised. "Why?"

"For how we treated you before," Tooth says.

"I don't understand," Jack admits.

"Oh, sweet tooth." Tooth looks mournful.

"For crying out loud," Bunny says. Jack twists to look at him. "Look, Jack, Manny chose you to be a Guardian, yeah?"

"I guess," Jack says.

"And we…." Bunny's ears flatten along the back of his head and he looks embarrassed. "Well, we chose not to tell you because we didn't think you'd make a good Guardian."

"You work with Pitch," North adds. "And your holiday is about fear and deception. Why would someone like that protect children, we thought."

"And we were wrong," Tooth says before Jack can get offended. Sandy nods in agreement and flashes a few symbols that Jack takes to mean, _You're definitely Guardian material._ "So we're sorry for judging you and for not telling you that you were chosen."

"Though you should know that Bunny defended you," North adds, smirking at Bunny. Jack looks back at him and grins when he sees how embarrassed Bunny looks. This close, Jack can see a faint blush underneath the thin fur near his nose.

"Aww, cottontail," Jack says. "You really _do_ care."

"Rack off," Bunny huffs, but his voice is fond. Jack's smile slips off his face.

"I owe you an apology, too," he says. "To all of you, for what happened on Easter. I shouldn't have let myself get distracted. Hell, I shouldn't have gone off by myself in the first place."

"Oh, Jack," Tooth says. "I can't even imagine what it must have been like to wake up with powers and no memories. We don't blame you for giving in."

"Everything worked out in the end," North says cheerfully. "You are forgiven, Jack."

Jack smiles. "So are all of you." He allows himself a moment to bask in the warm, fuzzy feelings that overtake him when the Guardians smile at him and Bunny ruffles his hair. "So," he says. "You all have badass headquarters—wait, do you have one, Tooth?"

She giggles. "I have a palace in the mountains that's attended to by flying elephants," she says. Jack stares at her for a moment.

"That beats all of yours," he declares, and Tooth looks smug. Jack lets his head fall back onto the couch and relaxes fully for the first time in days. He knows his exhaustion will eventually catch up with him, but for now, he's content to sit here with his team by the fire. "Anyway, do I need to get to work creating my own castle or what?"

It's still strange to think of himself as a Guardian, but they _are_ an official team now. And who knows. Maybe one day, Jack will even call them friends.

* * *

 **There are still a few loose ends that I haven't tied up yet, and that's because I'm considering writing a sequel to this (that's also why this story is so close to canon events). You can consider this the prologue to whatever I write next about Jack O'Lantern and the Guardians. Let me know your thoughts in the comments!** **Thank you to everyone who's commented, favorited, or even just read this story. Your support means a lot to me!**

 **To Jokermask18: I hadn't heard of Stingy Jack before you introduced it to me, but I looked up the legend and it looks very interesting! It just might end up in the sequel ;)**


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